The Fort Worth Press - After hurricanes, two earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba

USD -
AED 3.67303
AFN 67.838392
ALL 92.377753
AMD 386.688871
ANG 1.800698
AOA 913.502416
ARS 997.768799
AUD 1.531206
AWG 1.8015
AZN 1.696166
BAM 1.840129
BBD 2.017388
BDT 119.39484
BGN 1.84192
BHD 0.376919
BIF 2950.605261
BMD 1
BND 1.337248
BOB 6.928346
BRL 5.750197
BSD 0.999144
BTN 84.369678
BWP 13.59321
BYN 3.269728
BYR 19600
BZD 2.013907
CAD 1.39558
CDF 2868.999932
CHF 0.883035
CLF 0.03573
CLP 985.910202
CNY 7.217203
COP 4436.5
CRC 511.286119
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 103.742697
CZK 23.922016
DJF 177.924558
DKK 7.03025
DOP 60.208316
DZD 133.442029
EGP 49.2101
ETB 123.478326
EUR 0.94245
FJD 2.262987
GBP 0.78492
GEL 2.74026
GHS 16.285152
GMD 71.502227
GNF 8611.175145
GTQ 7.720606
GYD 209.01701
HKD 7.77921
HNL 25.215231
HTG 131.419485
HUF 387.44023
IDR 15775.3
ILS 3.760604
INR 84.398451
IQD 1308.851756
IRR 42105.000351
ISK 139.019898
JMD 158.767795
JOD 0.709102
JPY 155.062016
KES 129.249581
KGS 86.201889
KHR 4048.796323
KMF 460.374947
KRW 1407.180006
KWD 0.307503
KYD 0.832581
KZT 495.813105
LAK 21907.960971
LBP 89472.248097
LKR 292.168873
LRD 188.329711
LSL 18.052427
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.840941
MAD 9.911843
MDL 17.884664
MGA 4670.637273
MKD 57.970401
MMK 3247.960992
MOP 8.005344
MRU 39.705121
MUR 47.189429
MVR 15.459973
MWK 1732.200487
MXN 20.60015
MYR 4.45702
MZN 63.924983
NAD 18.051918
NGN 1676.550213
NIO 36.770621
NOK 11.092875
NPR 134.99873
NZD 1.687575
OMR 0.385029
PAB 0.999078
PEN 3.775893
PGK 4.01385
PHP 58.719841
PKR 277.683782
PLN 4.100974
PYG 7806.663468
QAR 3.64259
RON 4.690204
RSD 110.268975
RUB 97.750531
RWF 1371.17641
SAR 3.757184
SBD 8.351256
SCR 14.059865
SDG 601.498728
SEK 10.916545
SGD 1.338865
SLE 22.799618
SOS 571.033393
SRD 35.234985
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.742614
SZL 18.043677
THB 34.738062
TJS 10.620208
TMT 3.5
TND 3.141024
TOP 2.342098
TRY 34.383803
TTD 6.789548
TWD 32.495501
TZS 2663.729768
UAH 41.382279
UGX 3671.15761
UYU 42.122199
UZS 12792.683443
VES 44.872833
VND 25350
XAF 617.19122
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.752722
XOF 617.19122
XPF 112.21355
YER 249.775034
ZAR 18.091397
ZMK 9001.201624
ZMW 27.201475
ZWL 321.999592
  • CMSC

    -0.1800

    24.54

    -0.73%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0500

    7.11

    -0.7%

  • BCC

    -2.0100

    141.13

    -1.42%

  • SCS

    0.0200

    13.67

    +0.15%

  • RBGPF

    59.3400

    59.34

    +100%

  • RIO

    -1.4000

    61.2

    -2.29%

  • NGG

    -1.2400

    62.9

    -1.97%

  • JRI

    -0.3000

    13.22

    -2.27%

  • BTI

    0.0900

    35.24

    +0.26%

  • GSK

    -0.8300

    35.52

    -2.34%

  • VOD

    -0.8500

    8.47

    -10.04%

  • RELX

    -1.2100

    46.59

    -2.6%

  • BCE

    -0.1600

    27.69

    -0.58%

  • CMSD

    -0.2100

    24.75

    -0.85%

  • BP

    -0.7600

    28.16

    -2.7%

  • AZN

    0.4000

    65.19

    +0.61%

After hurricanes, two earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba
After hurricanes, two earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba / Photo: © La Demajagua Newspaper/AFP

After hurricanes, two earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba

Two powerful earthquakes rocked southern Cuba in quick succession on Sunday, US geologists said, just days after the island was struck by a hurricane that knocked out power nationwide.

Text size:

The quakes cracked walls and damaged homes, but did not appear to have caused any deaths, according to preliminary reports.

They left many residents running into the streets and badly shaken so soon after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, a category 3 storm, which struck the island last Wednesday.

"It's the last thing we needed," Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife from the town of Bayama in southern Cuba, told AFP, adding that a wall of her house had been damaged.

The US Geological Survey measured the second, more powerful tremor on Sunday at a magnitude of 6.8 and 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) deep, some 25 miles off the coast of Bartolome Maso, in southern Granma province.

It came just an hour after a first tremor, which the USGS put at a magnitude of 5.9.

The quakes are the latest events in a cycle of emergencies for the Communist-run island following two hurricanes and two major blackouts in the last three weeks.

The island suffered a nation-wide blackout on October 18 when its biggest power plant failed and it was then hit by Hurricane Oscar two days later.

The effects of last week's Hurricane Rafael have sparked rare protests, with an unspecified number of people arrested, according to authorities.

Cuba has been suffering hours-long power cuts for months and is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the breakup of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s -- marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.

- 'People got scared' -

The state-run newspaper Granma said no deaths had been immediately reported from Sunday's quakes, but that they had been felt throughout eastern and central provinces of the Caribbean island nation.

"Here people quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very strongly," Andres Perez, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in downtown Santiago de Cuba, told AFP via telephone of the first quake.

"It felt very strong, really, my wife is a bundle of nerves," he added.

"There are houses with cracked walls, others had walls falling down and some had their roofs collapsed," Karen Rodriguez, a 28-year-old hairdresser, told AFP from Caney de las Mercedes, a small town in Bartolome Maso.

Other residents in Bayamo, a city of some 140,000 people, described street poles swaying.

"People got scared, everyone came running out of the houses very scared," 24-year-old welder Livan Chavez told AFP.

The US tsunami warning system said no tsunami warning had been issued.

Hurricane Rafael left residents in Cuba without power for two days.

With concerns of instability on the rise, President Miguel Diaz-Canel has warned that his government will not tolerate attempts to "disturb public order."

Local prosecutors said Saturday that an unspecified number of people had been arrested after demonstrations in the wake of Hurricane Rafael.

Around 85 percent of residents of the capital had had their power restored on Sunday, according to the government, while the two worst-hit provinces in the west, Artemisa and Pinar del Rio, remain in the dark.

D.Ford--TFWP