MEXICO CITY (AP) – Nicaragua’s Vice President Rosario Murillo says 15 people have died in flooding across the country related to Tropical Storm Nate. That raises the newly formed storm’s death toll already to at least 17 across Central America.

Murrillo didn’t give details Thursday, on all the deaths, but she said two women and a man who worked for the Health Ministry were swept away by a flooded canal in the central municipality of Juigalpa.

Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solis has blamed two deaths in that country on the storm.

The storm is hitting the area following days of other heavy rains.