MIAMI, United States. – The Cuban journalist Claudia Padrón Cueto accused the governor of Pinar del Río, Rubén Ramos Moreno, of lying in this Wednesday’s broadcast of the Noticiero Estelar de Televisión about the assurance of vital services for the population after the passage of the Hurricane Ian.
This September 28, Ramos Moreno assured that there was “an already large level of resources (…) in the province” and that “most of the vital services” had the support of generator sets, “especially what has to do with water, bakeries, polyclinics, hospitals and other services that guarantee what is vital for the population”.
To those statements, Padrón Cueto replied on his Facebook wall: “Today the governor of Pinar del Río lied on national TV by assuring that most of the province’s vital services have the support of generators to guarantee bread, water supply and the operation of hospitals. FAKE”.
“The last bread they gave in San Juan y Martínez was last Monday. I have confirmed the same thing with people from the city of Pinar. They have not provided water either and their reserves are running out. Of course, they do not expect electricity anytime soon,” the reporter also wrote.
According to Padrón Cueto, originally from Pinar del Río, “there are families without food, because what little they had they preferred to cook before it decomposed, homeless people living on the charity of their friends or relatives who are sharing what they no longer have. The State has not given them ANYTHING, not water, not a can, not even the bread from the store.”
“There are areas where the personnel of the electric company have not started to work, it is that they have not even started the debris collection,” he added.
Lastly, he defined the island’s scenario as “sad” and “apocalyptic,” and stressed that, while the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, Granma, spoke of victories, the governor of Pinar del Río lied in the Newscast.
The central municipalities of the province of Pinar del Río were the most affected by Ian, which crossed the west of the island as a category three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
The Cuban opponent and former political prisoner Rolando Casares Soto defined as “a catastrophe” the serious situation in which his province finds itself.
In statements offered to CubaNet, Casares explained that his neighborhood, the Hermanos Barcón neighborhood, in the main municipality, was devastated by the meteor. He also pointed out that all the residents of that town suffered damage to their homes and that some lost everything.
According to Casares, the recovery of the territory is being carried out by the locals themselves due to the lack of support from state agencies.
“Neither Communals nor the Government have come here. No one sent trucks to clean up. People are cleaning up and putting rubble in front of their houses. This is a disaster. There is no food or anything,” she expressed.
official figures indicate that at least 4,000 homes were affected by Hurricane Ian in Pinar del Río. Consequently, it is estimated that some 800 people are unable to return to their homes. Likewise, a large part of the territory’s electrical, hydraulic and telephone networks were severely damaged by the storm, which also left thousands of hectares of crops devastated.
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