(Changes slug, rewrites throughout)By Gustavo PalenciaTEGUCIGALPA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Hurricane Iota exploded into a catastrophic Category 5 storm on Monday before it slams into a remote Central American coastal region, where efforts to evacuate villagers were hampered by shortages of fuel for boats. The hurricane was located about 100 miles (160 km) east-southeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua in the Miskito region. The Miskito people are descendants of indigenous groups and Africans believed to have escaped from shipwrecked slave ships. Local authorities and the navy frantically tried to get thousands of families to higher ground or ports in the watery Miskito region of jungles, rivers and coastline, which straddles both Nicaragua and Honduras. (Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Additional reporting by Diptendu Lahiri in Bengaluru; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
