• Submitted by: lena campos
• Society
• 11 / 03 / 2012

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Cuban President Raul Castro is on a tour of eastern provinces hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, with a message of hope to the people, news reports said.

He urged affected residents not to lose hope and said that no one would be left destitute, but that the government would have to weigh up each case.

Hurricane Sandy swept eastern Cuba last week, leaving 11 dead, more than 188,000 homes damages and large swaths of croplands flooded.

Castro said Cuba's second largest city, Santiago, looked like it had been bombed.

"It was a truly hard blow; it was a powerful hurricane that developed very quickly. The reality [of the damage] exceeds the photos and images in the press and television: Santiago has been shaken; it looks like a bombed city. But we will recover. You are a tough people. We've known that for over a half century," said Castro.

First vice-president Jose Ramon Machado, who is accompanying Castro in the tour of the affected regions, said "one of the greatest problems in the coming months is going to be providing food for the people."

Cuba already had a shortage of building materials and skilled construction workers before hurricane damage, tensing the situation in the coming period.

In fact, reconstruction from the 2008 earthquake Ike was still not completed in Holguin, the other province hit hard by Sandy.

A United Nations report says that Sandy destroyed almost 100,000 hectares (245,000 acres) of crops in eastern Cuba.

"Sugar cane was the single hardest hit followed by plantain and bananas," the report says.

Vice-President Jose Ramon Machado said one of the biggest problems facing the government was guaranteeing food supplies for the people in the affected areas in the the coming months.

Cuba does not produce enough food to feed its population and spends large amounts of money on importing food.

Meanwhile, Prensa Latina reported that many brigades of engineers and builders from provinces throughout Cuba are making progress Thursday in recovering electricity and communications in the eastern region, affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Solidarity is evident in the streets of Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Granma, Las Tunas and Guantanamo, where trucks transport new electricity poles, roofs, cement, and building blocks, while cranes help to clear roads and restore communications.

"We have turned this cyclone into a cyclone of effort, work, and unity, characteristic of our Revolution," Lazaro Exposito, first secretary of the Communist Party in Santiago province, told the local CMKC radio station.

Sandy crossed the eastern Cuban region on Oct 24, from Santiago to northern Holguin, with sustained maximum winds of 175 kilometres per hour, and heavy rains.

The most damaged sectors were homes, electrical services, and telecommunications.

After the first impact, Cuban leaders, led by President Raul Castro, started to supervise recovery works in the zones affected by Sandy.

Source: Cuba Si