Photo: @PresidenciaCuba
Havana, October 21 (RHC)-- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel checked the situation in the eastern provinces of the country due to the passage of Hurricane Oscar, now downgraded to a tropical storm.
According to the island's Presidency, the greatest damage is in Guantánamo, especially in the municipalities of Baracoa, Imías and Maisí, where major flooding is being recorded, and damage of varying magnitude is being reported in more than a thousand homes.
There are people in flooded areas who are being evacuated with the help of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, added a note posted on the Presidency's Facebook profile.
According to this information, Díaz-Canel, as president of the National Defense Council, indicated that the urgent evacuation of people who were trapped by the waters should be prioritized, and that an immediate assessment of the damage should be made to arrange for recovery.
"All support for the province of Guantánamo," he said.
In addition, there was contact via videoconference with the other eastern provinces, in which there was no damage so far, and the effect that the runoff of the waters could have in the next few hours is being monitored.
The most recent warning from the Cuban Institute of Meteorology indicated that Oscar continues to weaken, after making landfall yesterday in Guantánamo as a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, out of a maximum of five, and then degrading to a tropical storm.
However, due to its slow movement through eastern Cuba, heavy rains continue in that area, with the heaviest nuclei of precipitation over the province of Guantánamo, the easternmost in the country, and also in Holguín.
The previous evening, the Cuban president detailed the exceptional situation that the country is experiencing, during a meeting that was also attended by the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz; the Vice President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa; as well as the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Roberto Morales Ojeda.
