Cuba has been left reeling 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 45 miles (75km) 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 center of the city had collapsed.
“The entire front wall of the building fell,” Ignacio Dimas said in a tight voice as he scanned the damage early on 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.
In October, the island was hit by a one-two punch. First, it suffered island-wide blackouts stretching on for days, a product of the island’s energy crisis. Shortly after, it was slapped by a 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 the island.
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 on Thursday morning, the hurricane was located about 200 miles west-north-west of Havana. It had maximum sustained winds of 100mph (345km/h) and was moving west-north-west at 9mph.
Earlier in the week, Rafael brushed past Jamaica and battered the Cayman Islands, downing trees and power lines and unleashing heavy flooding in some areas.
Thousands of customers in Jamaica and Little Cayman remained without power as crews worked to restore electricity after the storm.
Rafael was expected to keep weakening as it spun over open waters and headed toward northern Mexico, although the hurricane center warned there was “above average uncertainty” in the storm’s future track.
Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted the 2024 hurricane season was likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast called for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
Human-caused climate breakdown has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive tropical cyclones because warming oceans provide more energy, producing stronger storms.
Source: theguardian.com
