Havana/The Cuban Government reported this Thursday that the impact of the intense Hurricane Melissa In the eastern region it left “extensive” damage, including 76,689 homes affected, among which there were 4,743 total collapses, according to a balance sheet with updated preliminary data.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel pointed out that “any preliminary figure is below the real impact,” during a televised meeting of the National Defense Council dedicated to evaluating the progress of recovery in the most affected eastern provinces.
A week ago, Melissa hit the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Las Tunas and Guantánamo for seven hours, severely affecting electrical and telephone services, destroying roads and bridges, and leaving communities flooded, in many places unprecedented, and flooding crops.
He indicated that now “the hardest stage” begins and acknowledged that, due to the magnitude of the damage, “recovery is going to take a while.”
The restoration of the running water supply is the “most complex” damage, due to the dependence on the electricity service
The restoration of the running water supply is the “most complex” damage, due to the dependence on the electricity service, and there are places that are supplied with tanker trucks. He also stated that so far “no loss of human life has been reported.”
He highlighted the protection of a total of 1,312,000 people, of which more than 69,870 were assisted in state institutions and 933,000 were housed in the homes of relatives, friends and neighbors.
Currently, he stated, more than 54,000 people remain protected, 7,500 of them in state centers.
The Minister of Economy and Planning, Joaquín Alonso, detailed that the reported damage to housing includes 10,311 with partial damage, 12,056 were left without roofs and 47,753 lost their roof partially, and of them, 2,190 have already been restored.
In the electricity sector, that territory has 64% of the service restored, all mobile telephony already working and the fixed network recovered by more than 70%, and in agriculture, it cited 47,833 hectares of crops damaged.
Regarding international aid to alleviate the damage, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Trade, Óscar Pérez Oliva, highlighted the “immediacy” of the response and the “diversity” of the countries and organizations that have shown solidarity.
He highlighted the resources prepositioned by the United Nations system, and the action plan launched by that organization worth 74 million dollars, of which eleven million have already been activated and received.
Among the contributors, he mentioned the donations from Germany, Norway and Canada, the “immediate reaction” from Venezuela, with tons of aid -basically medicines and food-, as well as the 240 tons sent by Colombia and the donation from India that includes a fully equipped mobile hospital, which will be sent immediately to the affected areas.
The powerful Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba in the early hours of Wednesday, October 29, with category 3 (out of 5) on the Saffir-Simpson scale and crossed its eastern end for about seven hours with strong winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, intense rains and a severe storm surge.
