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Caribbean & Central America - September 2008 (ISSN 1741-4458)
CUBA: Cuba struggles to deal with hurricane damage
Cuba is reeling from the devastating effects of two hurricanes -
Gustav and Ike - which, in the space of two weeks, claimed seven lives,
destroyed or damaged over half a million homes (along with hundreds of thousands
of hectares of agricultural land), and left estimated costs of US$5bn. As well
as affecting domestic supply, the lost crops will damage exports, since much of
the island's tobacco, citrus fruit and sugar industries have been destroyed.
Some 5,300 tonnes of stored food were also lost, raising the spectre of a food
crisis in the short to medium term. Such is the severity of the situation -
which once again has forced US-Cuba relations into the media spotlight - that
President Raúl Castro took more than a week to make a public statement. It still
remains unclear how the damage will be repaired.
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