HAVANA (AP) — A tornado and pounding rains smashed into the eastern part of Cuba’s capital overnight, toppling trees, bending power poles and flinging shards of metal roofing through the air as the storm cut a path of destruction across eastern Havana.
Power was cut to many areas and President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Monday at least three people were killed and 172 injured.
Julio Menendez, a 33-year-old restaurant worker said Havana’s 10 de Octubre borough “looks like a horror movie.”
“From one moment to the next, we heard a noise like an airplane falling out of the sky. The first thing I did was go hug my daughters,” who are 9 and 12, he told The Associated Press.
Driver Oster Rodriguez said that amid a fierce storm, what looked like a thick, swirling cloud touched down in the central plaza of the Reparto Modelo neighborhood “like a fireball.” He saw a bus blown over, though he said the driver escaped unharmed.
The windows in the seven-story Daughters of Galicia Hospital had been sucked out of their frames by the wind, leaving curtains flapping in the breeze, and all the patients, new and expectant mothers, had to be evacuated. In the streets, a palm tree more than 30 feet (9 meters) tall had crushed a pre-revolutionary American car.
Photos posted on Twitter by Havana residents showed cars crushed by fallen light posts and cars trapped in floodwaters around the city. The neighborhoods of Regla and 10 de Octubre and the town of San Miguel de Padron had been affected by the tornado.
Leanys Calvo, a restaurant cook in the 10th of October borough, said she was working Sunday night despite heavy rain and wind when she heard a rumbling noise outside and looked out to see what appeared to be a tornado touching down.
“It was something that touched down, and then took off again. It was like a tower,” she said, describing it as displaying colors of red and green. “It was here for two-three seconds, nothing more. They were the most frightening seconds of my life.”
When I saw this my first though was, oh crap another shooting…
Not sure it makes the relatives of the victims feel any better that it was a natural disaster.
If you want to feel small and helpless, invite a tornado over. Glad it wasn’t worse, but I’m sure the numbers will go up a bit.
Not mentioned in the article: are tornadoes common in Cuba? Feels like the wrong sort of terrain (ie not on a continent) heavy rain and strong winds sure, but a tornado seems unusual.
Would make it all the more terrifying to experience.
Next question: odds on the US sending aid? Not only is it the right thing to do for our fellow humans, but it would undermine the “great satan” (blanking on Cuban equivalent) rhetoric nicely.
And there’s water. A lot of water around Cuba. More than Puerto Rico. And it’s wet.
Many people don’t know that.
I had the same question about tornadoes in the tropics. Never heard about one before. I may have to consult my friend Dr. Google.
The only tornado I’ve ever seen in person was a waterspout off of Isla Verde Beach in Puerto Rico in about 1988. One data point, anyway.