Hurricane Ian leaves considerable material damage in its passage through Cuba

Hurricane Ian, with category three (out of five) on the Saffir-Simpson scale, caused considerable material damage in western Cuba on Tuesday, with heavy rains and strong winds, as it passed north to Florida (USA).

Ian, the fourth hurricane of the season and the first to affect Cuba, has left a multitude of municipalities devastated in the western third of the island.

At the moment no personal injuries have been reported, but the victims number tens of thousands. The evacuees alone are more than 50,000.

The hurricane, as Efe has been able to verify, has torn off roofs, knocked down hundreds of trees and electrical poles against buildings and roads, flooded streets, knocked down towers of two baseball stadiums, flooded houses and affected homes, factories, crop fields and warehouses. of the tobacco leaf.

Land and sea transport is suspended. The state-owned Electric Union (UNE) has totally suspended the electricity supply in the provinces of Pinar del Río and Havana to avoid incidents with the laying with winds that have come to exceed 200 kilometers per hour (km/h).

Cuban authorities spoke of damage "considerable" in a first assessment. The country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, promised for his part to focus "all the country’s efforts to immediately erase the damage". In the afternoon she traveled to Pinar del Río.

All the people with whom Efe spoke assured that it was the worst meteorological phenomenon they had suffered, despite the fact that Pinar del Río is an area frequently affected by cyclones. Three category three hurricanes have affected Cuba in the last 20 years.

"Never in my 62 years had I seen anything like this. we’ve lost it all"lamented Maritza Cueto, a resident of a humble neighborhood through which the highway to the town of La Coloma passes.

Héctor Polanco, 32, explained to Efe that the roof of his house, where he lives with his wife and four-month-old son, suddenly collapsed at dawn: "We had to yell ‘help’ for the neighbors to come and get us out.".

WINDS UP TO 200 KM/H

Ian made Cuban landfall at 03:24 local time (07:24 GMT) through La Coloma (southwest), with maximum sustained winds of over 200 km/h, moving less than 20 kilometers per hour (km/h) heading north.

In the last 24 hours, heavy and intense rains have been recorded in Cuba, with a maximum of 108.3 millimeters (mm) (or liters per square meter) at the Cuba-France Friendship weather station on the Isle of Youth (southwest ).

Hurricane-force winds have also been detected in the western third of the island. The strongest streak was 208 km/h in the town of San Juan y Martínez.

The Insmet has reported strong coastal flooding in some points of Pinar del Río -especially in the Gulf of Guanahacabibes- and moderate in the south of the Isla de la Juventud and other points in the west.

Associated with the eye of the hurricane, 32 kilometers in diameter, it was also recorded a calm of between 48 minutes and an hour and a half.

The eye completely reached the Gulf of Mexico along the northwestern Cuban coast around 11:40 local time (15:40 GMT) through Puerto Esperanza, after weakening slightly during its land transit.

However, Insmet expects Ian to regain strength in the coming hours and even considers it likely to reach category four.

Havana, the largest city in the country, is not on the front line of Ian’s destruction, but It has also been affected by the hurricane.

The capital has suffered heavy rains and strong winds – up to 100 km / h – since Tuesday morning, which could lead to accidents due to the poor general condition of their homes.

However, the effects of Ian will continue to be felt for hours in Cuba, with heavy rains and strong winds expected throughout the day and disturbances that will persist until this Wednesday.