Cuba left reeling after Category 3 hurricane ravages island

HAVANA (AP):

Cuba was left reeling Thursday after a fierce Category 3 hurricane ripped across the island, knocking out the country’s power grid, downing trees and damaging infrastructure. No fatalities were immediately reported.

Hurricane Rafael crossed a western portion of Cuba on Wednesday evening about 75 kilometres (45 miles) west of Havana, where José Ignacio Dimas returned home from his night shift as a security guard to find his apartment building in the historic centre of the city had collapsed.

“The entire front wall of the building fell,” José Ignacio Dimas said in a tight voice as he scanned the damage early Thursday. Like many buildings in the capital, it was ageing and lacked maintenance.

Some 50,000 people took shelter in Havana, with thousands more doing the same in regions south and just west of the capital since they lived in flood zones or in flimsy homes. The main road from Havana to the southern coastal city of Batabanó was strewn with dozens of utility poles and wires.

Lázaro Guerra, electricity director for the Ministry of Energy and Mines, said power had been partially restored in the island’s western region and that generation units were powering back up. But he warned that restoring power would be slow-going as crews took safety precautions.

As Rafael plowed across Cuba on Wednesday evening it slowed to a Category 2 hurricane as it chugged into the Gulf of Mexico before heading toward Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Late Thursday morning, the hurricane was located about 200 miles (320 kilometres) west-northwest of Havana. It had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (345 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 9 mph (15 kph).

Many Cubans were left picking up the pieces from Wednesday night, after a rocky few weeks in the Caribbean nation. In October, the island was hit by a one-two punch. First, it was hit by islandwide blackouts stretching on for days, a product of the island’s energy crisis. Shortly after, it was slapped by powerful hurricane that struck the eastern part of the island and killed at least six people.

The disasters have stoked discontent already simmering in Cuba amid an ongoing economic crisis, which has pushed many to migrate from Cuba.

Classes and public transport were suspended on parts of the island and authorities cancelled flights in and out of Havana and Varadero. Thousands of people in the west of the island had been evacuated as a preventative measure.

Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.