More than 16 thousand people who were isolated due to the flooding of the Cauto River have been evacuated in the Granma province, after the harsh impact of the Hurricane Melissa.
Teams from the Civil Defense, the Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, the Red Cross and firefighters continued rescue operations this Sunday for people trapped in communities flooded by the rains and runoff from the mountains that overflowed the Cauto and several of its tributaries, according to press reports.
Among the rescue operations in the last four days due to intense flooding, the evacuation of one hundred residents was reported in the town of Los Mangos, in the Río Cauto municipality, one of the critical points identified by the authorities. depending on the channel CNC TV Granma.
This and other media also reported yesterday on the evacuation of the residents who still remained in the Guamo area, in which forces from Granma and the neighboring province of Las Tunas were involved. The evacuees were sent to the Las Tunas municipality of Jobabo.
In previous days, inhabitants of the communities of the Granma municipalities of Grito de Yara, Río Cauto and Cauto Cristo had already been rescued by helicopters, boats and other means, and were transferred to state shelters in Las Tunas.
“Very complicated” situation
Throughout the province of Granma, more than one hundred thousand people were evacuated or protected in the homes of neighbors and relatives due to the effects of Melissa, according to data from the official press.
The authorities have considered that the situation is “very complicated” and “difficult”, due to the high water level, especially in the municipalities of Río Cauto and Cauto Cristo, which still remain in the “alarm” phase after the Civil Defense moved the rest of the east to the “recovery” phase.
In that sense, the organizations warned that the moment of greatest danger—of maximum water height—does not occur until 72 hours after it stops raining at the head of the river, and that they have observed a slight decrease in the level between Cauto Cristo and the Mella dam.
This Sunday, the Granma authorities reported the reestablishment of land communication with the head of the Río Cauto municipality. With the road now accessible for trucks, work was underway to send food, medicine and other resources to the area.
Like Flora
Citing local authorities, CNC explained that Melissa’s rains “generated accumulated highs in the reservoirs, which forced controlled discharges that reached 4,000 m³ per second, added to the releases of other dams towards their tributaries. This phenomenon caused the overflow that affected the area.”
Although the region has been affected in recent years by other floods and natural phenomena, many consider what happened now as an event only comparable to the severe flooding and damage caused by the historic Cyclone Flora in 1963.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba during the early hours of last Wednesday in the southeast of the country and left seven hours later through the northeast, accompanied by winds of up to 200 km/h and rain that left up to 400 millimeters and more in some parts of the eastern territory.
In addition to Granma, the hurricane also affected the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Las Tunas and Guantánamo. It has caused massive electricity outages, total and partial collapses of homes and infrastructure, road closures, widespread communications problems, severe flooding and considerable losses in agriculture.
Until now, the Cuban Government has not provided a figure for the economic amount of the damage – which is assumed to be very high – and has not reported any victims.
