Hurricane Ike Cuba 47 dead in HaitiHurricane Ike plaguing this Monday eastern Cuba with floods, enormous waves, heavy rains and winds, leaving behind 47 dead in Haiti at its dangerous path to the Gulf of Mexico and the coasts of the United States.
Ike, forcing the evacuation of more than one million people in Cuba, fell in the morning to category two on the Saffir-Simpson scale (five), with winds of 165 kph, after entering earth with grade three on Sunday night in Cape Lucrecia, in the eastern province of Holguin.
At 06H00 local (12H00 to mainland Spain), its center was located 45 km southeast of the eastern province of Camaguey and was moving toward the center of the island to 24 mph, sweeping the territory from east to west, according the Meteorological Institute, to exit near Havana on Tuesday.
Ike would continue on Tuesday "to the southeast Gulf of Mexico"-where the U.S. produces a quarter of its crude-Americans and costs, LA, and "it is possible some additional weakening" as it passes through the centre of Cuba this Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) based in Miami.
Before reaching Cuba, Ike caused rains and floods that killed 47 people in Haiti only in the town of Cabaret, near Port-au-Prince, capital of the impoverished country, where more than 600 died in total with the recent passage of cyclone Hanna , And Gustav Fay.
In the Bahamas, the hurricane swept through the roofs of many houses, trees and electricity poles, and inundated large areas Dominican Republic, although no casualties were reported, after the evacuation of more than 44,000 people.
In their wake devastating for eastern Cuba, Ike raze houses, power lines and crops in Holguin, punished with heavy rains, flooding and hurricane winds, according to local reports. "The situation is very critical," said witnesses from Holguin. "Continued rains with strong winds and electric current was cut off," said Alvaro Cruz to AFP by telephone.
In Cuba, 11 of 14 provinces are kept in "hurricane warning": Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguin, Las Tunas and Camaguey, in eastern, central Ciego de Avila, Villa Clara, Sancti Spiritus and Cienfuegos, and the western Matanzas. Havana and Havana City (west) remain "vigilant".
The evacuations exceed a million people, only half a million in Holguin and Camaguey, according to local reports. More than 13,000 tourists were evacuated from Varadero, the main tourist attraction, in Matanzas, 130 km east of Havana.
In Baracoa, Guantanamo (far east), the waves were over seven meters, the height of buildings of five floors. Hundreds of houses were destroyed. "I have never seen anything like," said an inhabitant of the place 57 years.
In Havana, 2.2 million inhabitants, is feared by the hundreds of old buildings and houses in the historic quarter-World Heritage Site. "We fear the domino effect", meaning that houses are destroyed by the collapse of a building, warned John Contino, the mayor of Havana.
The government called for taking all measures to avoid loss of life, and decided to suspend the academic year. Long lines formed a day earlier, on Sunday, in shops and warehouses across the country because the population is supplied food, water and candles. "The whole nation is now at war with what is called alarm fighter," said former president Fidel Castro, removed from power by illness, in a newspaper article.
Ike punishes Cuba one week after Hurricane Gustav the cross to the west with winds of 240 mph (Category 4) and gusts of up to 340 kph, apparently without leaving dead but tens of thousands of victims and enormous destruction in Pinar del Rio and Isla de la Juventud, where Castro compared with a "nuclear strike."
Gustav, which in its passage through the Caribbean and the United States left a hundred dead, mostly in Haiti, in Cuba damaged 140,000 houses, 600 schools, crops flattened and brought down power towers.
Cubans seeking to recover with the help national and international levels, but the U.S. rejected a request from Cuba to lift the economic embargo before the emergency.
