Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Sep 9 2008 (IPS) – Even before the ravages caused by Hurricane Gustav in the western part of Cuba have been fully assessed, Hurricane Ike made landfall on the northeastern shore of the island on Sunday, swept westwards out to sea on Monday, and is showing signs of powering up before slamming Cuban territory again.
Water temperatures (in the Caribbean) have reached 31 or 32 degrees, and they are fuelling this cyclone. Its intensity has diminished in the last few hours, but it will get stronger again. As it goes farther out to sea, it may become more organised and more intense, said Cuban meteorologist José Rubiera.
The head of the Meteorology Institute s National Weather Forecast Centre, Rubiera confirmed that the eye of the cyclone had moved back over water on Monday at about 10:30 a.m. local time (14:30 GMT), while torrential rains, gigantic waves and gale force winds continued to lash Cuba s eastern areas.
The greatest threat now is to western Cuba, which is apparently in the path of the hurricane. The city of Havana is in the danger zone.
It was the blackest night of my life. At one point we thought our best chance was to take cover under an old but very stout, solid mahogany desk, Ileana Sánchez, who lives in Camagüey, 540 kilometres east of Havana, told IPS by phone.
Trees and roofing tiles are flying through the air, the inner courtyards have been destroyed, and no one knows how many houses have been flattened, or how many people left homeless, Sánchez said.
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The historic centre of Camagüey was added to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage List this year, and has a great number of very old houses that are in a run-down state, she said.
The extremely dangerous hurricane, as Rubiera described it, hit Cuba with maximum sustained wind speeds of 195 kilometres per hour, and by Monday morning telephone messages from the east of the island reported severe damage due to high winds and coastal flooding. Authorities say four people have been killed in the storm so far.
Ike, formerly classified as category 4 when it was still travelling over the ocean towards Cuba, left 11,915 displaced people in the Dominican Republic, damaged 80 percent of housing units in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and killed about 60 people in Haiti, according to media reports.
But Haiti has been struck by four tropical storms or hurricanes in the last three weeks. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that flooding produced by tropical storm Hanna was responsible for the deaths of more than 500 people in the Haitian city of Gonaives alone, and the death toll will continue to rise hourly as the floodwaters recede.
Over 250,000 Haitians have not eaten for three days, United Nations sources said on Sep. 6.
Hours before Ike hit Cuba as a category 3 hurricane, and while evacuations organised by the authorities were still under way, state television showed wave surges higher than five-storey buildings pounding the streets of Baracoa, one of the earliest cities founded in the country, located on the easternmost tip of the island.
Some people fear that civil defence measures taken in some cities, like Camagüey, may not be a match for the power of the incoming storm.
In Holguín, Politburo member and head of the Provincial Civil Defence Council Miguel Díaz Canell admitted on Sunday that hurricanes are such an unaccustomed event in this area that the population may not be totally aware of the risks it faces.
Estimates calculated from the reports coming in from the different provinces put the number of people evacuated so far at over 1.2 million, out of the total Cuban population of 11.2 million. Most have moved into the homes of neighbours, friends and relatives. Coastal towns and mountainous areas, in particular, have been targeted for evacuation.
Some 70,000 people, including Civil Defence personnel and Revolutionary Armed Forces troops, have been mobilised for the protection of civilians. They have all the necessary resources, such as means of transport and engineering machinery, to do the job, said Colonel José Betancourt of the Civil Defence General Staff.
Betancourt said that by Sunday evening, 1,700 shelters and 900 field kitchens had been set up and made available for evacuees. In order to safeguard lives and livelihoods, 1,355 leadership organisations went into action, he added.
More than 13,000 tourists, including 9,210 foreigners, were evacuated from the beach resort of Varadero, 140 kilometres from Havana, the Tourism Ministry announced. All national air services were grounded, but the authorities met with tour operators to get as many foreign visitors as possible back home.
The Education Ministry closed every school and education centre in the country and cancelled student outings planned for the weekend.
Our nation is on what, in war, is called combat alert , said former Cuban President Fidel Castro on Sunday. In one of his regular Reflections columns, he said families affected by natural disasters will be given material help and food for as long as is necessary.
More than ever, rational planning and the fight against waste, parasitism and nepotism are making headway. Absolute honesty is necessary, without demagoguery and making no concessions at all to cowardice and opportunism, said the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, who said he was grateful for the international cooperation offered after Gustav s devastating passage through the island.
Russia, Spain, China, Venezuela and East Timor are among the countries that have expressed their willingness to help the people of Pinar del Río and the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), severely battered by Gustav, which wreaked havoc in the west of Cuba on Aug. 30, leaving an as yet unknown number of people homeless as well as causing economic losses.
Salvadoran press reports said that on Sep. 6, the U.N. World Food Programme sent 45 tonnes of food to Cuba from its Regional Centre for Humanitarian Response, based in El Salvador.
In the context of tense and hostile bilateral relations over almost five decades, on Sep. 3 the United States asked Havana to allow a humanitarian assessment team to visit Cuba to properly assess damage caused by hurricane Gustav, and said it was prepared to offer immediate humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people through an appropriate international relief organisation.
On Sep. 6, the Foreign Ministry replied that Cuba did not need the assistance of any humanitarian evaluation group, and requested Washington to allow the sale to Cuba of essential goods and to lift the restrictions that prevent U.S. companies from offering private commercial credits to our country for the purchase of food in the United States.
While the Cuban government issued a message to the nation calling on everyone to take essential measures, with discipline, rationality and foresight, Vice President Carlos Lage requested municipal authorities in Havana to prepare for the worst .
Cuban President Raúl Castro has given his personal advice and instructions by telephone to the Civil Defence Councils in each of the threatened provinces, and has sent members of the highest-ranking state bodies the Council of State, the Communist Party and the armed forces to the danger zones.
