Keystone-SDA
Cuba is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Rafael, which is expected to hit the island on Wednesday. The country is barely recovering from a giant power outage and the passage of Oscar which left eight people dead two weeks ago.
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November 06, 2024 – 03:23
(Keystone-ATS) “Rafael has transformed into a hurricane with maximum sustained winds close to 120 km/h,” the American Hurricane Center (NHC) announced on Tuesday on the social network X. The center of the hurricane was located on Tuesday night on Wednesday 32 km southeast of the island of Little Cayman in the Caribbean Sea, added the American agency.
Faced with the threat, the Cuban authorities have increased calls for vigilance and preventive measures “to protect the population and safeguard material resources”. Nine of the fifteen provinces, located in the west and center of the island, including that of Havana, have been placed on “cyclonic alert”.
The Cuban presidency indicated Tuesday afternoon that the “national defense council”, made up of military personnel, had been “activated”. “In situations of exception and disaster, the national defense council directs the country and assumes the powers corresponding to the state organs, with the exception of the constituent power,” she added.
Power outages
According to local media, at least 70,000 Cubans have been evacuated to date in several provinces of the country, including more than 66,000 in Guantanamo (east), the province most affected by Hurricane Oscar, and where rain continued to fall this week, saturating the ground with water.
Two weeks ago, Cuba had already been hit by Category 1 Hurricane Oscar, which hit the far east of the island on October 20 before transforming into a tropical storm. Severe flooding surprised residents of two locations in Guantanamo, San Antonio del Sur and Imias, where eight people died.
Oscar arrived while the island was suffering a general power outage. For four days, the island’s 10 million residents were without power due to a giant blackout that broke out on October 18 following fuel shortages and a breakdown at the main power plant. of the country.
On Thursday, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged that the situation with the electricity system remained “tense” on the island. Since the giant blackout, the country has suffered numerous power cuts due to chronic electricity production deficits.
