Ian, a Category 3 hurricane, caused ‘considerable’ damage as it passed through western Cubawith gusts up to 208 km / h and torrential rains, before heading for Florida in the United States.
• Read also: Cuba threatened by Hurricane Ian
• Read also: State of emergency declared in Florida as Hurricane Ian approaches
“The center of the hurricane left the national territory at 09:50 (13:50 GMT) around Puerto Esperanza”, in the province of Pinar del Rio (southwest), indicated the Institute of Meteorology of Cuba (Insmet).
No casualties were reported for the time being, according to the Cuban authorities, but the violent winds and intense rains persisted in the west of the island where several localities showed faces of desolation, noted journalists from the AFP.
In Consolacion del Sur, 145 km southwest of Havana, Caridad Fernandez, 65, saw the roof of his house badly damaged and water entered through the main door. “Everything is damaged,” laments the sexagenarian.
“When the hurricane made landfall, things got complicated, the roofs started to fly off,” says his son, William Graberan, a 49-year-old trader.
AFP
Ian touched Cuba at 04:30 (08:30 GMT) in the locality of La Coloma, a fishing village in the province of Pinar del Rio – 190 km from Havana -, before crossing the island from south to north, leaving collapsed houses in its path , torn roofs and flooded crops.
Some 40,000 people have been evacuated in this province and “the damage is considerable”, indicated the leader of the local Communist Party, Yamilé Ramos. “Tobacco homes and farms have been hit, roads cut, trees uprooted,” she said.
AFP
Gusts reached 208 km / h in San Juan y Martinez, an area of tobacco plantations.
“It was apocalyptic, a real disaster”, testified on Facebook Hirochi Robaina, owner of “Finca Robaina”, a prestigious tobacco plantation founded in 1845, regarding thirty kilometers from San Juan y Martinez.
Roofs and windows ripped off, buildings collapsed, debris strewn on the ground: the photos released by the owner testify to the violence of the hurricane.
“Heavy and intense rains”, with an accumulation of more than 200 millimeters of water, were recorded in this area. Floods have hit coastal areas in the southwest of the island, according to the Insmet.
AFP
“Desolation and destruction. We lived through hours of terror. There is nothing left,” said a resident of Pinar del Rio to his son, a local television journalist who broadcast the testimony on social networks.
Monday evening, the provinces of Pinar del Rio and Artemisa, as well as the island of Juventud, located 340 km south of Havana, had been placed on “maximum” alert by the Cuban Civil Defense.
AFP
The provinces of Pinar del Rio and Artemisa remained without electricity and 315 lines were damaged in the rest of the west of the island.
Before making landfall, Ian had strengthened into a category 3 “major hurricane” on the Saffir-Simpson scale, graduated up to 5.
In the capital, where 2.1 million people live, the wind has strengthened with gusts up to 180 km, according to the Insmet, and heavy rains. Two houses partially collapsed, according to Alexis Acosta, the steward of the Old Havana neighborhood.
According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), the hurricane is forecast to “turn” north-northeastward with “a reduction in speed tonight (Tuesday) and Wednesday.”
Ian’s “center should move over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico in a few hours, pass west of the Keys archipelago” south of Florida, “and then approach the west coast of the Florida (…) Wednesday and Wednesday evening”, specified the NHC in its last bulletin.
AFP
A state of emergency has been declared across Florida and authorities are stepping up preparations. Some of the modeling done now predicts landfall south of Tampa Bay… In some areas there will be catastrophic flooding and deadly storm surges,” Governor Ron DeSantis warned.
He asked residents to stock up and prepare for power cuts, while mobilizing 7,000 members of the National Guard.
“Heed evacuation orders…Mother Nature is a very formidable adversary,” he urged.
US President Joe Biden has approved federal emergency aid for 24 of Florida’s 67 counties.
NASA, the American space agency, has given up the takeoff scheduled for Tuesday of its new mega-rocket for the Moon, from the Kennedy Space Center located in this southern United States state.
Ian follows Hurricane Fiona, which ravaged the Atlantic coast of Canada on Saturday, killing three people, following the Caribbean last week where seven people died.
