Rescue teams work to get Fernando Herrera Ramírez, 63, from a 45-foot-deep well in the town of Mícara, Frank País municipality in Holguin. It is the most recent of the consequences of the heavy rains that have affected the central east of Cuba this weekend. The man’s fall occurred on Sunday, when he was performing maintenance on the well with his stepson and the floor came loose due to the moisture in the soil.
After midnight, Forces from the 30th Command, together with the Rescue and Rescue Unit of the Pedro Soto Alba nickel plant, were able to provide Herrera with oxygen, but they had not yet been able to reach him. Early this morning, he was trying to remove the last layer that separates rescuers from the man, who is heard talking and has asked for water.
Although the rains are not going to stop, the authorities believe that the worst is over and are beginning to think about recovery. The president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said this Sunday on his Twitter account that “no one will be left helpless,” but the people affected still numbered several thousand this Sunday night.
In Holguín, where there are some 4,700 people evacuated, several towns are isolated, beginning with La Altagracia, a community in the municipality of Cacocum, flooded by the flooding of the Salado and Matamoros rivers. The situation caused the construction of a factory that connects the area with Limoncito, in the La Fortuna Popular Council, to collapse, where there are 198 people incommunicado.
In that area alone, some 157 hectares of sugarcane, fruit trees and other crops have been flooded when more than 900 millimeters of rainfall has been exceeded in the last three months, when the annual average is 200. Vista Hermosa and Monte Alto, in the municipality of Calixto García They are also isolated and numerous dams are spilling, which is why thousands of inhabitants of nearby areas have been displaced, such as Gibara, Rafael Freyre, Antilla, Calixto García, Cacocum, Urbano Noris and Mayarí.
In Las Tunas, where some 1,800 people were evacuated, half were still in this situation on Sunday. Félix Duarte Ortega, a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party and head of the agri-food department, was in the province this Sunday, who evaluated the damage caused, very large when 700 hectares of crops were damaged. In addition, there is concern about milk, since it is impossible to keep transporting it through the most affected areas, which are precisely the most productive.
There are also problems in at least 26 houses, two total collapses and the rest partial roofs, in addition to the collapse of walls and pits.
In Santiago de Cuba there are up to 6,000 hectares of root crops, vegetables and grains affected by the floods, in addition to some twenty total and partial landslides, and roads with structural damage. The worst unemployed municipalities, in this case, were Guamá, Palma Soriano, Tercer Frente, Contramaestre, San Luis and the main city, Santiago de Cuba.
“In the midst of a lot of work on the eve of the glory days that are to come, which are the best example that it can be done, despite the difficult circumstances,” the official press motivated the people of Santiago, who both they have lost. In the province there were more than 200 power cuts and the state company is working hard to repair the damage, the best example of which is what happened in the Paraíso People’s Council, which has two of its three generators seriously damaged.
In Granma, where a drowned person died last Friday, Vice Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca was there to assess the extensive damage in the province, but the full extent is still unknown. Only in Manzanillo, one thousand hectares of cassava, squash, corn, cucumber, sweet potato and rice were drowned under the waters and possibly higher losses are estimated in Bayamo.
Many populations remain incommunicado in the province, and although the number of people affected by the situation has not been specified, there are at least 45 communities in Guisa, including La Plata, Los Números and part of Victorino; The Star, in Buey Arriba; Minas de Frío, in Bartolomé Masó; La Güira, in Cauto Cristo; El Cepillo, in Jiguaní, and San Apapucio, in Bayamo.
Meanwhile, in Camagüey they are immersed in the evaluation and cleaning tasks. In the province there have been more than 3,000 people evacuated and 455 homes affected, of which 46 were total collapses.
“Given the difficult situation that the heavy rains of recent days have caused in various provinces of the country, we insist to our people on the importance of complying with all hygienic-sanitary and life protection measures,” wrote the Minister of Health. Public, José Ángel Portal, on Twitter.
Among the hygienic-sanitary measures recommended by the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) are the proper preservation of food, washing and disinfection of fruits and vegetables, sanitation of spaces where mosquito breeding sites can proliferate, and going to the doctor in case of symptoms. such as fever and skin rash, official media reported.
For the next few days, the Cuban Meteorological Institute has forecast more showers, due to the trough over the Gulf of Mexico “and the atmospheric instability, encouraged by the strong heating of the day and local conditions, so the typical conditions for this time of the year”. In addition, it warns that the current level of filling of the reservoirs and the saturation of the soils should put the population on alert, so that they are aware of the information that is provided in the future.
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