The highest authorities of the regime said this Friday that the “malicious rumor” of the collapse of a dam in San Antonio del Sur caused panic and stampede of residents already beaten by the inaction of the authorities in that municipality during the passage of the Hurricane Oscar. They announced a investigation and criminal prosecution against the authors of the false news.
“The National Defense Council decided that The authors of the false news about the breaking of the curtains at the San Antonio del Sur dam will be investigated and prosecuted for creating panic in an affected population also psychologically after the passage of Hurricane Oscar,” published the official newspaper Granma.
According to the note, “the malicious lie” was “spread with evident sinister purposes among the residents.” Yoel Pérez García, president of the Defense Council in the easternmost territory of Cuba, was in charge of denying the fake news.
Yanet Marzo Manuel, general director of the Hydraulic Use Company in Guantánamo, told the organ of the Communist Party of Cuba that The technical state of the Los Asientos dam is “optimal”“without failures in any element of its infrastructure, including the curtain, spillway and basin.”
He described as normal the recent rainfall recorded upstream in the receiving source of the aforementioned reservoir, built in 1991, with the capacity to store 17.5 million cubic meters of water, a volume it currently stores.
He said that The Los Asientos dam is currently pouring 21.7 cubic meters per secondwhich, like the downpours that have fed it in recent hours, are normal and do not imply any danger of flooding.
The disaster caused by Hurricane Oscar as it passed through eastern Cuba has left seven dead so faraccording to official figures. The authorities have not specified the number of missing people.
Cuban citizens have mobilized in the face of the desolate scenario in Guantánamo. Donations flow, but there is a lack of arms and transportation, according to a young Christian who arrived in San Antonio del Sur with a shovel in hand to help remove the mud left by the floods in the houses.
This Saturday he arrived in Havana by air a load of 1,498 kilograms of medicines and expendable materials, purchased with UNICEF fundsto support the medical care of 140,000 people, especially pregnant women, girls, boys and adolescents in Guantánamo, the province most affected by Hurricane Oscar.
According to the official newspaper Granma, The kits purchased include medications such as analgesics, antipyretics, antibiotics, antifungals and “other useful supplies for emergency medical care.”
In Guantanamo, several public health institutions were devastated by the floods caused by Oscar, especially in San Antonio del Sur, Imías, Baracoa and Maisí. Infrastructure and supplies that are already precarious and scarce in Cuba were damaged or directly lost.
For its part, The World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations (UN) announced a contribution of technical equipment and food modules for the recovery of the devastated Guantanamo towns. Activists gather in different parts of the Island donations of food, hygiene, clothing and footwear for a population that already had great needs without having experienced a hurricane.
