After the floods left by the Hurricane Melissaimportant sections of the railway in eastern Cuba still remain paralyzed, from undermined bridges to collapsed drains.
This panorama forces national trains and essential industrial services for the harvest and passenger transportation to be suspended, detailed the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, in a publication in Facebook.
The lack of resources and the magnitude of the damage prevent a full recovery, according to the official, which causes a chain of interruptions that affects everything from the Havana-Santiago connection to the supply of fuel and agricultural mobility.
In Santiago de Cuba, he points out, lane No.1 between Cristo and Santiago remains inoperable waiting for a train loaded with stones, while the bridge at km 205.8 on the Bayamo line exhibits an undercut between the bridge and the track, which cannot be repaired due to lack of materials.
Although the bridge over the Cauto river in Palma Soriano did not suffer structural damage, the cavity at its entrance requires urgent irrigation of stones, the publication adds.
Meanwhile, industrial roads aggravate the situation. The main Barranca, vital for the passenger railway and the transportation of cane, was left with destroyed drains, which forced its total closure. Meanwhile, on the Laguna Blanca branch, the bridge over the Cauto was completely destroyed in the Mella sugar mill, and the Dos Ríos mill has accumulated multiple failures without inputs to intervene.
These minor points between km 230.3 and 161 on the Bayamo line complete a panorama in which each delay in one segment slows down the progress of the next.
Guantánamo does not escape the chain of problems, since its main line operates only with caution in three sectors due to persistent erosion and runoff, especially in Songo-La Maya and km 22 of Los Ramos, where a provisional work mitigates, but does not resolve the risk.
In the province of Granma, the Bayamo-Guamo and Bayamo-Manzanillo sections remained flooded in the last few hours, blocking access to the El Cacao quarry in Jiguaní and delaying the stone essential for any sustainable repair once the waters recede, says Rodríguez Dávila.
For its part, Holguín concentrates its slopes on the Cacocum-Alto Cedro section, whose completion is vital to reestablish the link with Santiago and break the regional railway isolation.
The Cuban Government updated this Thursday the preliminary assessment of the damage caused by Melissa, which severely hit the east and left severe damage in a country already burdened by a prolonged economic crisis.
During a meeting of the National Defense Council, broadcast on the program Round Tablethe president Miguel Diaz-Canel He warned that “any preliminary figure is below the real impact” and warned that “the hardest stage” of the recovery process now begins.
The Cuban president acknowledged that, based on the magnitude of the damage, the reconstruction “is going to take a while,” according to a report from the agency. EFE.
