Hurricane Matthew, which crossed Cuba’s eastern tip in October 2016, caused 97.2 million dollars’ worth of damages, turning it into the third most devastating cyclone that has hit the island in the last decade, only behind Ike (2008) and Sandy (2012).
The updating of the value of the damages was published yesterday in the daily Juventud Rebelde, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI), which also establish that the most affected sector was agriculture and livestock, with 20.7 million dollars’ worth of losses.
Matthew, with a category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale – out of a maximum of 5 -, devastated Cuba’s eastern tip on October 4 last year and damaged during its crossing 46,706 homes, out of which 8,312 completely collapsed (17.8 percent).
Homes were replaced at a cost of 15.5 million dollars, according to ONEI.
The losses in terms of goods and services that were not sold or carried out amounted to 3.2 million; the damages to installations was 2.8 million; and Cuba dedicated 964,000 dollars to preventative measures.
The most affected municipalities were those of Baracoa, Imías, Maisí, San Antonio del Sur and Yateras, in Guantánamo province.
After the passage of the cyclone, the Cuban government announced it would finance half of the price of the construction materials for the persons whose homes were damaged and a period of grace of a year was granted to agricultural and livestock producers for the payment of credits prior to the disaster.
Damage to the building patrimony in Baracoa has been considerable. Photo: Denise Guerra.
Victims of the hurricane. Photo: Denise Guerra.
Baracoa after Matthew. Photo: Denise Guerra.
Before Matthew, the hurricanes that left the most important losses in Cuba were Ike, which in September 2008 caused 293 million dollars’ worth of damages, and Sandy, whose passage in November 2012 represented damages valued at some 278 million dollars.
EFE / OnCuba
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