Civil Defense of Cuba declared the "alarm" phase in the provinces of Pinar del Río, Artemisa, and the particular municipality of Isla de la Juventud in the west.
Hurricane Ian hits western Cuba.
Cuba began to feel the first effects of Hurricane Ian, which became a category two on Monday afternoon and may intensify on its way to Florida, United States. "At 5 p.m. (9:00 p.m. GMT), its winds reached a speed of 155 kilometers per hour, which makes it a category two hurricane" on a scale of five, said Aylin Justiz, a specialist at the Cuban Institute of Meteorology on a local television broadcast.
Ian was 250 km southeast of Cabo de San Antonio, the western tip of Cuba, and was moving at 20 km/h, he added.
According to the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC), the center of Ian will pass near or over western Cuba on Monday night to become "a major hurricane tonight or early Tuesday," heading for Florida. Hurricane Fiona: the Dominican Republic confirms two deaths from the powerful cyclone.
The Civil Defense of Cuba declared in the afternoon the "alarm" phase in the provinces of Pinar del Río, Artemisa, and the particular municipality of Isla de la Juventud, in the west, where the rains and winds began to produce strong swells, with waves between five and seven meters.
Waves rise under a dark sky along the coast of Batabano, Cuba. / AP / Ramon Espinosa.
Local authorities said some 50,000 people were evacuated in Pinar del Río, 6,000 of whom were taken to state shelters and the rest to the homes of relatives and friends.
The Civil Defense also declared a cyclonic alert for the provinces of Havana, Mayabeque, and Matanzas, also in the west, and Cienfuegos, in the country's center.
The path of Tropical Storm Ian. (NHC).
In the capital, of 2.1 million inhabitants, there were long queues to get some food.
Fishermen from the Havana coast tried to get their boats to safety before taking refuge in their homes.
"The government is taking all the precautions to start the evacuation due to the cyclone; it is removing all the vulnerable people stuck to the river,"
Dorama Vivas, a 42-year-old pensioner who lives in El Fanguito, a neighborhood embedded in the coast, told AFP. of the Almendares River, which runs through the west of the capital. Neighbors reinforced her makeshift wooden houses.
In front of the Malecón in Havana, a gang of workers protected the front windows of a central gas station, previously hit by these natural phenomena, with wooden panels.
In the US state of Florida, the inhabitants are also preparing for the imminent arrival of the cyclone after a hurricane warning from the NHC for their coasts.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 67 counties, and authorities are preparing for the storm's arrival, which they hope will also cause power outages.
The governor said some 5,000 National Guardsmen joined 2,000 troops from Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina to help fight the cyclone.
Workers protected the windows of a gas station in Havana with wooden boards, on September 26, 2022, before the arrival of Hurricane Ian. (YAMIL LAGE / AFP).
In cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa, authorities began distributing sandbags among residents to protect their homes from the risk of flooding.
The Caribbean and Canada are still counting the damage left by Fiona, a storm that swept through last week.
Fiona claimed seven lives passing through the Caribbean last week: four in the US territory of Puerto Rico, two in the Dominican Republic, and one in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe.
In the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, it caused two deaths, one of them a 73-year-old woman who took refuge in the basement when her house was swept away by the waves.
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