Cuba’s economic paralysis continued Wednesday, with the government extending the orders for all activity to remain shut down until Sunday as the island tries to recover from a nationwide blackout and the effects of a hurricane.
The National Defense Council issued the order to extend the shutdown of all institutions, including schools and industries, as authorities struggled to restore electricity island-wide and deal with the wreckage left by Hurricane Oscar in eastern Cuba, which remains mostly without power.
Just hours before the electrical grid collapsed last Friday morning — triggered by the failure of a major power station — the country’s prime minister had said Cuba’s economy had been “paralyzed” by rolling blackouts because of a shortage of oil.
Islandwide blackout hits Cuba hours after government declares an ‘energy emergency’
The news about the extended economic suspension shared the main space in state media with photos of Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel. Wearing a military uniform, Díaz-Canel flew to the eastern province of Guantánamo to meet residents in San Antonio del Sur, a municipality devastated by the hurricane, trying to stem criticism about the lack of government assistance.
“You are not alone or abandoned. Cuba is looking after you,” Díaz-Canel said in a gathering with residents, apparently in response to comments on social media and state media websites by area residents who complained about the lack of timely information about the coming hurricane and the lack of help afterwards.
But unlike in other times in which Cuban authorities control the crowd in semi-staged photo ops, desperate neighbors directly rebuked the Cuban leader, as videos of the exchanges show.
“President, they left us alone, 29 children; I had to evacuate my five children; we almost drowned,” a man told him in a broken voice. “The government left us evacuated in a school and abandoned us; there was no one.”
When a woman told Díaz-Canel that she had not had water in several days and had no food to give to a sick person she was caring for, Díaz-Canel replied that “no one is to blame for what happened here.”
“Now food, water, milk and a whole group of brigades are coming here to clear the roads for passage,” the Cuban leader said.
Earlier on Tuesday, local state television Primada Visión reported on a visit by Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman to Baracoa, where she urged local government officials they needed “to publish more images of what the comrades in the Armed Revolutionary Forces” and other officials were doing to show a more robust government response.
Despite tours by Diaz-Canel and other government officials of storm-affected areas, images of authorities distributing much-needed aid and food to the victims were notably absent from state media. Photos of damaged homes were equally scarce.
But one dramatic video on social media, of a terrified family trapped by the water in their home as they cried for help and cursed the government, offered a glimpse of what residents experienced while Hurricane Oscar pounded the area Sunday and Monday with unprecedented amounts of rain.
“If the water keeps coming here, we are going to drown; no one is coming,” says a woman in water up to her chest in the video posted on a Facebook group. “Neither the party nor the government has come here to see what is happening,” says a man who was perched on one of the walls of the house. He pointed to a child holding on to what appeared to be the top of a bunk bed.
“Everything has gone to waste for us, there is no government here in the country,” the man said, adding an expletive.
Another video shows two men swimming in a flooded street attempting to rescue several neighbors.
The government updated the storm death toll to seven. Six people, including a five-year-old girl and her mother, died in San Antonio del Sur, the municipality visited by Díaz-Canel. Another person who has not been identified died in nearby Imías, another town that had been isolated after flooding and mudslides cut off communications.
Cuban authorities have not said how the seven people died but reported severe flooding in the area. The two municipalities most affected were built in a narrow valley on the southern side of the mountains that is normally bone dry but can easily flood in heavy rains.
A senior Defense Ministry official, Maj. César Eduardo Cross Licea, said on TV Tuesday night that members of the Cuban military and the Interior Ministry had carried out around 500 rescue operations in flooded areas. State media shared images of some patients being airlifted into military helicopters.
According to state media, at least 2,282 homes lost some or all of their roofs in Guantánamo province, and around 5,000 people were evacuated. But government officials said they were still trying to assess the damage in municipalities like Imías, which, along with Baracoa, remained inaccessible by ground on Wednesday.
Though eastern Cuba remains mostly without power, images and videos have been slowly trickled out of the region, showing the hurricane brought new levels of devastation to Cubans already living in difficult conditions in Baracoa, Imías and San Antonio del Sur.
Images posted by Roelvis Gainza, a Methodist priest who was able to reach San Antonio del Sur to deliver food and water to its residents, show Imías streets and houses covered in thick mud. Residents were trying to air-dry mattresses and what little belongings they had left on the streets and sidewalks. One photo shows a member of the church, covered in mud, in front of his belongings. which had been reduced to a pile of trash.
Photos published by another member of the Methodist church in Baracoa show several homes that lost roofs and windows or crumbled entirely.
While aid has been slow to come from Miami, a representative for Katapulk, an online supermarket that delivers food directly to people on the island, said sales have increased in recent days as Cubans in the United States have rushed to help their relatives.
The company has continued delivery despite the blackouts and waived delivery fees in certain provinces, the company’s representative said.
In chat groups, private business ownerson the island have worried about food going to waste at a time the government has made importing food more difficult for private enterprises.
Many private business owners have tried to continue operating, but worry they might be unable to stay in business after losses due to the lack of electricity, low sales and government restrictions.
“They have just extended the order that no state-owned enterprises should work until Sunday. And while the state sector is closed, we, the private sector, are the ones who continue to work,” one private business owner said. “It is good to remind the government that in a crisis like this, it is the private sector that is contributing and serving a sector of the population.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-23 13:07:00
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