Havana wakes up to flooded streets after Wilma

Havana wakes up to flooded streets after Wilma

25-10-2005 / 08:10
Cuba's seafront capital Havana awoke to flooded neighborhoods and
devastation unleashed by Hurricane Wilma after the vast storm tore
across this Caribbean island en route to Florida.

Western regions of this Caribbean island also suffered serious flooding,
with some residents saying it was the worst storm to hit the island in
12 years.

Rescue workers and firefighters waded through waist-deep waters in some
parts of the capital Monday, as residents became trapped in homes
surrounded by floodwaters.

No fatalities were reported overnight however, as Wilma crashed over
Cuba's northwest coast battering oceanfront communities and sending huge
wages into Havana's famed seawalls.

Wind gusts from the storm reached 130 kilometers an hour (81 miles an
hour) at times overnight, bending trees with its force.

Parts of the capital were without power Monday and the city's Miramar
neighborhood was one of the worst areas hit by flooding.

"The danger passed quickly and now the recovery begins. The most
difficult task will be confronting the sea's penetrations," Cuba's vice
president, Carlos Lage, said after meeting with Havana's mayor, Juan
Contino.

Some residents said they had seen nothing like it since a storm in 1993.

"I'm terrified, this was apocalyptic and the worst is yet to come," said
Olga Salinas, 58, trapped on the second floor of her house in the
flooded Miramar district.

The west Havana neighborhood was inundated as sea water was washed into
parts of the city by strong waves and tides kicked up by Wilma's wrath.

"I've seen nothing like it since the storm of the century, in 1993, that
was terrible," Salines told AFP, chain-smoking as she recalled the
devastation caused here by the El Nino phenomenon in 1993.

Her 29-year-old son served coffee as they huddled with three neighbors
in their home.

Residents said their fears were worsened as the storm hit overnight and
they could not see the damage being caused in the dark.

The vast storm weakened slightly Monday to a Category Two hurricane as
it ravaged the US state of Florida, but it was a Category Three storm on
the Saffir-Simpson scale when it pounded Cuba overnight.

The capital Havana, the province of Pinar del Rio and the island's west
coast appeared worst hit by Wilma.

A half-dozen city neighborhoods were reported to have suffered serious
flooding -- the city sits at sea level -- as well as the coastal areas
of Batabano and Guanimar, in southern Havana province.

Some coastal zones were reporting the sea had been washed inshore up to
one kilometer (0.6 miles) and that sea levels had risen at least two
meters (6.5 feet).

Authorities warned the danger was not over, as strong tides could
underpin further flooding.

"Now the desolation will come," Salinas said, adding, "the streets will
be full of rubbish, and people will be trying to salvage whatever they can."

Authorities said Sunday that four people had died after a bus ferrying
tourists away from areas threatened by Wilma slipped off a wet road.

An Italian and a Dutch tourist were among those reported killed in the
accident that occurred Friday in Nueva Paz.

© AFP

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