Díaz-Canel, upon the arrival of Melissa: “It will be a very difficult night for all of Cuba”
The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, warned this Tuesday, a few hours after the direct impact of the powerful hurricane Melissain the east of the island, that this “will be a very difficult night” for the entire country.
Melissawhich previously crossed Jamaica as a category 5 (out of 5) on the Saffir-Simpson scale and then weakened to 3 before rising again to 4, is moving through the Caribbean Sea towards eastern Cuba, where it is expected to make landfall after midnight, with strong winds and heavy rain.
“We have just checked with the provinces the measures before the passage of Melissa. There are more than 735,000 evacuees, and work is still continuing,” said Díaz-Canel.
The latest estimates predict that it will make landfall in the municipality of Guamá (southeast), in the vicinity of the town of Chivirico, and that it will leave the country between six and eight hours later through the municipality of Banes (northeast). Its effects will continue to be felt for another eight or ten hours in the country.
It will probably arrive as a category 4, according to forecasts, moving towards the northeast, with sustained winds of more than 200 kilometers per hour, intense rains that could leave up to 450 millimeters (liters per square meter) and storm surges with waves of up to eight meters.
The effects are feared devastating. Cuban authorities have warned that this is an “extremely dangerous” system due to the probability of sudden flooding, sea penetration into low coastal areas, landslides and even dam breaks.
