Earthquake rocks Cuba as residents struggle to recover from recent storms

Officials opportunity efforts to measure harm are nether measurement aft 6.8-magnitude earthquake hits eastbound Cuba.

A powerful earthquake has deed eastbound Cuba, adding much problems to a state still reeling from a bid of recent storms and blackouts.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported connected Sunday that a magnitude 6.8 earthquake deed astir 40km (25 miles) southbound of nan municipality of Bartolome Maso. No deaths aliases injuries person been reported truthful far.

“There person been landslides, harm to homes and powerfulness lines,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said successful a societal media post, adding that nan areas of Santiago de Cuba and Granma were affected.

“We are opening to measure nan harm successful bid to statesman recovery. The first and astir important point is to prevention lives,” he said.

People successful affected provinces person said nan earthquake was 1 of nan astir powerful they person felt successful their lives – nary mini feat successful an area that nan USGS says has knowledgeable 23 earthquakes of magnitude 5 and supra successful nan past 50 years.

“We’ve felt earthquakes successful nan past, but thing for illustration this,” Santiago resident Griselda Fernandez told nan Reuters news agency.

Other residents successful Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, reported that nan quake caused buildings to shingle and that galore group were still opinionated nervously successful their doorways.

“You had to spot really everything was moving, nan walls, everything,” Yolanda Tabio, a 76-year-old successful nan city, told The Associated Press.

Many of nan region’s homes and buildings are older and susceptible to earthquake damage.

State-run media published images of terracota roofs and facades of actual artifact homes that had collapsed pinch nan shake. Many images showed structural harm to ceilings, walls, windows columns arsenic good arsenic to nationalist infrastructure.

The USGS said that adjacent countries specified arsenic Jamaica besides felt immoderate effects.

The tremor is nan latest successful a bid of earthy disasters that person compounded existing infrastructure problems successful Cuba, wherever ample swaths of nan organization besides look economical insecurity.

In October, Hurricane Oscar brought dense rains and wide powerfulness outages to nan land and near astatine slightest six group dormant aft making landfall successful eastbound Cuba.

Another storm, Hurricane Rafael, knocked retired powerfulness for astatine slightest 10 cardinal group aft slamming into nan eastbound portion of nan land past week.

The large wind uprooted trees and knocked down telephone poles. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of group were displaced.

Source

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Al Jazeera and news agencies