More than 66,000 people were evacuated from Guantanamo, in the far east of Cuba, before the imminent arrival of heavy rains which threaten a region already heavily affected by Hurricane Oscar, local television announced on Sunday, November 3.
A large part of the people evacuated in seven of the ten municipalities of the province of Guantanamo, located almost 1,000 kilometers southeast of Havana, are in San Antonio del Sur (13,600 people) and Imias (more than 2 000), where Oscar caused historic floods and killed eight people two weeks earlier, according to television.
Cuba's Meteorological Institute warned Sunday of the arrival of “showers, rain and thunderstorms towards the eastern end” of the country. In addition, an area of low pressure south of Jamaica, which could transform into a cyclonic formation in the next forty-eight hours, is also being monitored, he added. “We are constantly monitoring the weather situation in Cuba and its possible evolution”wrote Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on X.
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12,000 homes damaged by Oscar
Category 1 hurricane Oscar, which struck Cuba on October 20 before strengthening into a tropical storm, left Guantanamo with saturated soils and emptying reservoirs, increasing the risk of flooding in several municipalities in the province.
According to official figures, more than 12,000 homes, as well as roads and nearly 20,000 hectares of crops, mainly coffee, were damaged by Oscar.
Cuba is going through its worst crisis since the 1990s, marked by shortages of medicine and fuel, frequent power cuts, as well as an unprecedented wave of migration since the Castro revolution of 1959.
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