Hurricane Sandy tears through Cuba heading north as tropical storm

Published on 26/10/2012 03:23

Hurricane Sandy hit mountainous eastern Cuba yesterday as a Category 2 storm, bringing heavy rains and strong winds that ripped the roofs off homes and damaged crops, but caused no deaths.

In the eastern city of Santiago, tin roofs were ripped off some homes, according to resident Yolanda Tabio, 64, and a small church was damaged.

“We’re still wet, cleaning up leaves and branches that the wind brought down,” she said. “It was very unpleasant.”

Despite that, Cuba’s second largest city was spared the worst of the storm’s force, which slammed into the provinces of Granma, Holguin and Las Tunas.

Some 5,000 tourists at resorts in Holguin were evacuated, along with 10,200 residents. Another 3,000 in low lying areas of Las Tunas were also moved.

State media said at least ten homes fell down in Holguin and coffee and tomato crops in Granma were damaged. Power was cut off over night, with falling palm trees bringing down electricity cables.