Havana, October 11 (RHC)-- In just 24 hours on Twitter, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel (@DiazCanelB) gained over 17,000 followers, according to a report by Prensa Latina news agency.

The Cuban president tweeted for the first time at 08:00 a.m. local time, on Wednesday, October 10th, from the eastern province of Granma, where he delivered the main remarks at the event to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of Cuba’s struggles for the independence.

In the tweet, he thanked all those who supported and followed him on the social media platform, and later in the afternoon tweeted from the province of Pinar del Río, on the other side of the island, where he traveled to check on the recovery efforts following damages caused by Hurricane Michael.

The presidents of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and Bolivia, Evo Morales, and Argentinean Nobel Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel were among the first to welcome the Cuban president to Twitter

Twiplomacy, which conducts annual studies on the presence of world leaders on Twitter, also tweeted to announce the Cuban president was now officially on the social network.