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 News from Around the Americas | September 2005 
Six Million Cubans Evacuated in Last Five Years
 Prensa Latina
| | Cubans play with waves crashing against Havana's seawall as Hurricane Rita passed near Cuba. (Photo: Claudia Daut) |
Six million people in Cuba, equivalent to more than half the inhabitants of the island, were evacuated over the last five years to avoid fatalities from hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Most people find refuge in institutions prepared by the Civil Defense System or in houses of relatives and neighbors; part of the spontaneous solidarity of the Cuban people.
In September 2004 alone, over two and a quarter million people were evacuated before Hurricane Ivan, which reached category 5-the maximum on the Saffir-Simpson Scale- and the sixth strongest in the Caribbean of all times, as well as the most powerful to hit the Island since 1924.
As a result of precautions taken by the Cuban Civil Defense, the most effective in the world, there were no human losses; something considered amazing in the world, but customary in Cuba.
UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction director, Salvano Briceño, acknowledged this when he said that Cuba is an example of how to face the dangers of hurricanes, and commented on the importance of political willingness to reduce people's vulnerability.
Briceño recalled Hurricane Georges of 1998, in which only four people in Cuba lost their lives, while 600 died in other regional nations, and Charley, 2004, that took the lives of 30 people in Florida and just four in Cuban territory.
Explaining such differences, among other reasons, he mentioned prevention, response as part of a general education and systematic training with practice, as well as continuous information to the population.
Before the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the island lacked the organizations to entirely protect the people, although it had been frequently hit by hurricanes, one of which killed more than 3, 000 people in November 1932.
The almost nine thousand cubic meter capacity of Cuba's 235 reservoirs, all built within the revolutionary period, contributes to avoid flood damage to humans and material. |
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