Ray Sanchez | Havana Bureau
3:00 PM EDT, September 10, 2008
HAVANA - The death toll from Hurricane Ike went up by one this
afternoon, as emergency workers finally reached the body of a man
trapped under three floors of rubble after a section of a building gave
way across from Havana's seawall.
Crying relatives stepped into the street and told neighbors, simply:
"He's dead."
The death brings the total to five so far.
The search had gone on since shortly after 8 a.m., when residents say a
chunk of a neighboring building crashed through the roof and triggered a
chain reaction. Floor after floor gave way under the weight.
"It sounded like a bomb," said Angelo Gonzalez Montero, 30.
Cuban media reported 64 partial or total building collapses so far in
this country's capital, brought down by a combination of age, decay and
Hurricane Ike's torrential downpours and winds.
Tuesday, 16 gave way, including four aged buildings in a single block
that crumbled into rubble.
This morning, the number shot up sharply.
The collapse came as Hurricane Ike delivered its parting shot on Cuba,
on its way into the Gulf of Mexico.
At 2 p.m., the National Hurricane Center said Ike was heading northwest
at about 8 mph, and gaining strength. Maximum sustained winds had grown
to 100 mph.
Behind it, Ike left a destructive trail stretching hundreds of miles
across Cuba, from the eastern provinces to Pinar del Rio in the west.
Electrical power is out across much of the island, communications
spotty. Hundreds if not thousands of homes are damaged or destroyed,
rain-swollen rivers have overflowed their banks, mudslides and felled
trees block roads.
The hurricane had pummeled the island for two-and-a-half days since
coming ashore on Cuba's eastern end Sunday night. As it left Cuba, it
delivered a punishing blow to areas hard hit by a Category-4 Hurricane
Gustav on Aug. 30.
In the western province of Pinar del Rio, Olga Atiaga, a 53-year-old
housewife, said Gustav obliterated her roof and some walls. Then Ike
blew away a mattress and smashed the kitchen sink.
"I don't even have anything to sleep on," she said.
Gustav damaged at least 100,000 homes but didn't kill anyone because of
massive evacuations. Wednesday morning, state media reported that 2.6
million - nearly a quarter of the island's population - were evacuated
or sought shelter with friends or relatives. Close to one million were
taken to government shelters.
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Maylin Figueredo, 24, rode out Ike's passing with neighbors across the
street from the tiny Old Havana apartment she shared with her 4-year-old
son. The apartment, which was deemed unsafe by local authorities, was
literally a concrete and wood box built beneath a cracked and unsteady
staircase reinforced with wooden beams. Cracks crisscrossed her walls
like roads on a map. Neighbors on the upper floors were evacuated earlier.
"We're all scared," Figueredo said. "This place could come down any moment."
Ike first made landfall in the coastal city of Baracoa, destroying 300
homes and damaging hundreds more.
In Camaguey, Ike severely damaged the electrical and telephone systems.
Parts of the province's southern coast remained underwater from surging
seas and overflowing rivers.
In Granma, the state press reported that some 170,000 cans of coffee
were at risk of being ruined and 150,000 banana plants lay flattened.
Some remote communities were unreachable because of flooding.
In western Pinar del Rio, reports of damage were still sketchy.
Dangerous storm surges were reported along the southwestern coast, which
is lined with small fishing villages. Reservoir levels were dangerously
close to overflowing and flooding nearby communities and roads, state
media said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-0909-ike-cuba-2pm,0,7886303.story
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