Hurricane Rafael will make landfall in Cuba this Wednesday with the fury of a “major” cyclonetwo weeks after Oscar left eight dead in the middle of a widespread blackout, according to forecasts from the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
With winds of 160 kilometers per hourThis Wednesday, Rafael became a category 2 hurricane (out of 5) on the Saffir Simpson scale. “It is expected that (…) it will be close to the strength of a major hurricane when it makes landfall in western Cuba,” the NHC has stated in its latest report.
The Cuban Meteorological Institute has agreed that Rafael will gain strength and it is expected that “it will be very close to category 3 before impacting” between the provinces of Pinar del Río and Artemisa, in the west of the country, indicated on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
According to the NHC, the meteor was 260 kilometers southeast of Havana and will make landfall in Cuba after noon this Wednesday.
Alert in nine provinces
The authorities declared an “alert” phase in nine of the fifteen provinces in the west and center of the country, including Havana. Local media reported that at least 70,000 people have been evacuatedincluding more than 66,000 in Guantanamo – the region most affected by Oscar and where it was still raining this week.
Due to the forecasts, “air operations” have been suspended in the western region of the country, a measure that includes the airports of Havana and the famous resort of Varadero, in the neighboring province of Matanza, according to the official newspaper ‘Granma’.
Likewise, classes have been suspended in several provinces. In Havana and other towns in western Cuba, public passenger transportation service was also interrupted. “There is not a soul”Marisol Valle, a 63-year-old woman, explained to the AFP news agency while trying to take some furniture before the water reached her home near the sea, in Guanimar, a fishing town about 70 kilometers from Havana. .
The presidency of Cuba reported on Tuesday in its X account that “the National Defense Council was activated” in the afternoon to take the direction of the country. This is a measure for “exceptional and disaster situations,” he indicated.
The president Miguel Diaz-Canelwho heads this body, supervised the actions of the groups responsible for food, energy, transportation, construction and health.
Havoc after Oscar
Cuba tries to recover from the damage caused by Oscar at the end of October, which coincided with a four-day general blackout in the country, after a breakdown in the most important thermoelectric plant and due to a lack of fuel. The complete restoration of electricity took several days in Havana and several weeks in the affected areas.
Since the gigantic blackout, the country has suffered numerous outages due to chronic electricity generation deficit. In September 2022, the island already experienced a widespread blackout after Hurricane Ian passed through the west.
The availability of energy this Wednesday “will depend a lot of the effects caused by the hurricane», declared engineer Lázaro Guerra, director of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, to Cuban television.
In Havana, where two of the country’s ten million inhabitants live, brigades of workers accelerated on Tuesday in sewer drainage and waste collection solids, as well as tree pruning.
The serious flooding of Oscar They surprised the inhabitants of two Guantanamo towns, San Antonio del Sur and Imías, where eight deaths were recorded.
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