Cuba gradually restores electricity and assesses damage caused by Rafael

The éelectricity has started at be re-established Thursday in some regions of Cuba, where the authorities have begun to assess the damage caused by the passage of Hurricane Rafael, which hit the west of the island without causing any casualties.

“During the meeting of the National Defense Council, it was indicated that it had been possible to reestablish the electrical system between the center and the east” of the country, the Cuban presidency indicated on X.

In the three provinces of Havana, Mayabeque and Artemisa, in the west of the country, the hardest hit by the hurricane, “work on the lines is accelerating in order to determine the damage and assess their connection to the national electricity system as soon as possible,” the same source added.

Downed power poles and trees after Hurricane Rafael hits Artemisa, Cuba, on November 7, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

Rafael, a Category 3 hurricane, swept Cuba from south to north with winds of up to 185 km/h on Wednesday for more than two hours, before losing intensity as it entered the Gulf of Mexico.

The strong winds, even before Rafael made landfall, caused the collapse of the island's electrical system on Wednesday, already weakened by its age and fuel shortages, which had completely disconnected in mid-October, leaving 10 million Cubans without power for four days.

On the southwest coast of the island, gusts reached between 130 and 140 km/h, according to the authorities. In Havana, they reached 110 km/h, and could reach up to 185 km/h in the worst-hit areas.

“For the time being, no deaths have been reported,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel was quoted as saying by state television during the damage assessment meeting. Authorities said nearly 250,000 people had been taken to shelter before the hurricane hit.

In the afternoon, the head of state visited several affected areas, in the capital and in the agricultural provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque.

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A high-voltage pylon on the ground on a road between Havana and Artemisa after Hurricane Rafael hit Cuba, November 7, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

Rafael hit Cuba just two weeks after Oscar, a category 1 hurricane, which killed eight people in the east of the island during the previous blackout.

– “Everything is devastated” –

On the highway linking Havana to Artemisa, six high-voltage power line pylons were completely twisted by the force of the winds, AFP journalists noted, while many electricity poles were on the ground on the main and secondary roads.

Residents in a flooded street in Batabano, in the province of Mayabeque, Cuba, on November 7, 2024 after the passage of Hurricane Rafael © AFP – Yamil LAGE

In surrounding villages, streets were littered with tree branches, tiles and chunks of concrete torn from facades by the strong winds.

“It's not easy, everything is devastated, the (lighting) tower of the baseball stadium fell too. Everything, everything has been destroyed,” Elias Perez, a 65-year-old retired mason living in Artemisa, the capital of the province of 60,000 people, told AFP.

“We have to move forward” and “those who don't have a gas bottle will have to make do with charcoal” to cook, he explained.

“I barely slept because I was so worried,” says Natalia Martinez, 63, but “we know how to survive, we have power cuts almost all the time,” she says, while the communist island, shaken by a deep economic crisis, suffers from recurring power cuts.

Tree branches torn off in Artemisa after Hurricane Rafael hit Cuba, November 7, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

In Havana, home to two million people, residents spent the day cleaning the streets using brooms, shovels and buckets.

The governor of the capital, Yanet Hernandez, indicated at a press conference that 461 homes had collapsed, completely or partially, with the fall of “light roofs, walls, stairs”.

The airport in the capital and that of the seaside resort of Varadero have reopened and flights have resumed, according to the authorities.

In September 2022, the island had already experienced a widespread power outage after Hurricane Ian hit the west of the island. Restoring power took several days in Havana and several weeks in the most affected areas.

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