Cuba/Haiti

Havana on maximum alert as Ike rages towards it

Article published on the 2008-09-08 Latest update 2008-09-08 15:32 TU

An evacuated house is submerged in floodwaters in Baracoa
(Photo: Reuters)

Cuba raised its hurricane alert level to maximum in the capital, Havana, on Monday as Hurricane Ike moved westward across the island. Thirteen of the country's 14 provinces are now on maximum alert. The death toll in Haiti reached 600. Relief efforts for hundreds of thousands of Haitians are being hampered by continued bad weather.

The second hurricane to hit Cuba in less than a week, Ike, made landfall late on Sunday at Punta Lucrecia. It brought winds of almost 200 kilometres an hour and was classed as a category three hurricane by the US National Hurricane Centre.

The hurricane had moved through the Turks and Caicos islands as a category four storm on Saturday, leaving extensive damage.

Hurricane Ike pictured over Cuba, Hispaniola, and the Bahamas in a satellite image

Over 800,000 people have been evacuated from coastal areas of Cuba and 9,000 tourists have left the resort of Varadero. Cuba's meterological service said Cuba had never seen two hurricanes in such a short space of time.

The earlier storm, Gustav, hit the west of the island but caused no fatalities.

RFI's French service's correspondent Guillaume Decamme said there was no electricity in the worst-hit areas and that all schools had been closed.

In Haiti, four storms in three weeks - Fay, Gustav, Hanna and now Ike - have killed 600 people and over half a million people are still awaiting relief from the United Nations. Further rain on Sunday hampered efforts as bridges collapsed.

Pablo Medina, Red Cross Operations Co-ordinator for the Americas in Geneva, says that it will take years for the country to recover.

"We tried to carry out our relief operations considering that there will be a long-term recovery process," he told RFI. "That, of course, can take up to five years, depending on the scale of the disaster."

Hurricane Ike is expected to reach Havana on Tuesday.

Felix Garcia from the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami predicts that Ike will increase in power as it nears the US.

“It is expected to get stronger because as it gets over the waters it will get water vapour again and get the energy it needs to get stronger," he told RFI. "So we are actually treating this as a major hurricane for us."