Ferocious waves transform capital
published: Wednesday | October 26, 2005

Cuban President Fidel Castro (left) and Cuba's chief weather forecaster José Rubiera talk about Hurricane Wilma during a live television programme in Havana, last Sunday. Western Cuba was buffeted by 86-mph (138-kph) wind gusts and spates of torrential rain from Wilma's outer bands. The hurricane appeared to brush past the island, where authorities had evacuated more than half a million people, but forecasters warned of dangerous storm surges in Havana. - REUTERS

HAVANA (AP):

HURRICANE WILMA never made landfall in Cuba, but its ferocious waves transformed the island's capital city for more than a day, ripping off chunks of the famous Malecon seawall and flooding many of Havana's most prominent streets.

Picturesque but dilapidated buildings lining the northern coastal highway alongside the Malecon received an especially severe beating on Monday. Their doors and wooden window shutters were flung off, as first-floor homes filled with waist-deep water.

"This has been terrible, a true catastrophe," said Aurora Quintana, 38, who lives on the second floor of a building facing the ocean. "These houses are already in really bad shape. Recovering from this, given our economic situation, is going to be tough."

Cuba's communist government sent amphibious vehicles and rescue squads to evacuate nearly 250 residents from homes throughout the city.