Losses in Cuba from Gustav are enormous

Losses in Cuba from Gustav are enormous
Posted on Wed, Sep. 03, 2008
By FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

HAVANA --
Fidel Castro on Wednesday likened Cuba's damage from Hurricane Gustav to
a nuclear bomb, as authorities began cleaning up after the worst storm
on the island in more than 50 years.

''I'm not exaggerating,'' Castro wrote in a newspaper column.

Gustav hit western Cuba on Saturday night as a powerful Category 4
storm. Video footage of the Isle of Youth was catastrophic, Castro said.
Authorities said damage to agriculture from Pinar del Río province are
of an ``impressive magnitude.''

The tally so far:

• Castro said 20,000 of the 25,000 houses on the Isle of Youth were damaged.

• More than 90,000 homes were damaged in the western province of Pinar
del Río, according to the government news agency AIN.

• 3,306 tobacco curing barns destroyed, with 906 tons of tobacco leaves wet.

• More than 32,000 acres of crops ruined, including 7,239 acres of grain
and nearly 1,500 of fruit.

• 42,000 cans of coffee were destroyed, and 3,100 tons of grapefruit lost.

• 930,000 chickens and 161,000 had to be euthanized, Wednesday's Cuban
media said.

The numbers are daunting for a nation that is already suffering from a
food crisis. Cuba imports large portions of its food, and President Raúl
Castro has been making widespread changes to the agriculture industry in
an effort to increase production.

''This is the hurricane worse than any other hurricane that has ever
existed in Cuba,'' economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe told El Nuevo Herald.
``The cost of this tragedy is enormous.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/670254.html