The hurricane damaged almost 45,300 homes, 461 health sector facilities – including hospitals and polyclinics – and 1,552 schools, of which 200 have already been repaired.
Around 120,000 people remain sheltered in evacuation centers or with family members in Cuba, after Hurricane Melissa passed along the east coast of the island last Wednesday, according to preliminary data.
The information was revealed on Monday during a meeting of the National Defense Council, the highest crisis and disaster management body, led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel and which has been meeting daily in recent days.
According to a balance released by the Cuban Presidency, the Hurricane damaged almost 45,300 homes, 461 health sector facilities – including hospitals, and polyclinics – and 1,552 schoolsof which 200 have already been repaired.
The governor of the province of Granma (south), Yanetsy Terry, said that the most severe damage was concentrated in the municipality of Río Cauto, where the strong floods caused by the flood of Cuba’s largest river have since begun to recede.
Electricity supply is beginning to be restored in the province of Las Tunas (south), where power has already reached 94.5% of customers, while progress is slower in the remaining areas affected by the hurricane.
In agriculture, they were preliminary damage reported on 78,700 hectaresof which more than half are banana plantations.
Melissa crossed the east coast of Cuba for seven hours as a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale (whose maximum value is 5), with winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour and accumulated precipitation of up to 400 millimeters.
A storm caused flooding, electricity cuts and significant damage. Food distribution has already reached 181 thousand people and the objective is to provide assistance to a total of 900 thousand.
Not totally, around six million people were affected by Melissa’s passage through the Caribbeanthe UN estimated on Monday.
A person responsible for (PAM), Alexis Masciarelli, highlighted from Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, that “at this moment the (…) priority is to reach the most isolated areas”.
WFP has initiated emergency programs to distribute food to the most affected families and additional supplies are expected to arrive in the coming days.
To date, food kits have been distributed to 1,500 families. WFP’s objective is to provide assistance to 200,000 people in Jamaica alone to respond to urgent food needs.
No Haiti, the country with the most victimsthe hurricane caused significant damage to infrastructure in the southern region. PAM has already provided assistance to 12,700 people and the objective is to reach 190,000 in the next two weeks, with food kits for two weeks.
Last Wednesday, WFP launched a request for 74 million dollars (around 64.2 million euros) for emergency aid for 1.1 million people in the Caribbean region, numbers that may be insufficient.
