Streets turned into rivers, a sky increasingly gray and the collapse of a building demolished by the impact of water: on Friday November 29 it rained so much that the next day, the Granma newspaper compared Havana with Macondo, wet town in the fictional novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.
That day, anything that happened in Havana, occurred with drops of water falling as background soundtrack.
The fourth cold front of the current winter season has left much rain as a hurricane, with winds somewhat strong, 63 kilometers per hour. The clouds have released their load of water over most of the western part of Cuba, from Artemisa province to Ciego de Avila, in the center of the island
“These rains are associated with the decline of nearly stationary front that has remained throughout the day with slow movement and is now on the central provinces, weakening in its southern portion, combined with an upper trough in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the which is causing atmospheric instability with strong and continuous rains, ” the Center for Weather forecasts Institute says
Flooding in the streets and avenues of Havana paralyzed traffic during Friday afternoon. Nothing less could cause the unusual rainy day that lasted from morning to evening, with small interludes of showers. Forecasters do seem to have reason to be astonished: in the meteorological station of Casablanca 72 millimeters fell in just three hours.
Already in the early hours of Saturday, the rains fell in Havana, but increased in the province of Artemisa. The Institute of Meteorology guaranteed on Saturday morning that we would have more rain and indeed, is still raining.
The rains have taken their toll: a building in poor Centro Habana broke down because of two collapses, which took the lives of two people. Outside the capital, a partial collapsed occurred in a house in the town of Caimito, in the province of Artemisa, although no casualties were reported.
Havana seems to be allergic to rain. Whenever the skies weep, the city trembles and one building collapse. Thus, a severe local storm can be as lethal as cyclone.
Western Cubans have left to wait for the cold front to pass at once, to see the sun rise.
Author
Javier Ortiz
