At least nine people have died and two are missing due to the passage of tropical storm ‘Laura’ through Haiti, where it has arrived after leaving at least four deaths in the Dominican Republic and before making landfall in Cuba, which has already begun to notice the first ravages.
‘Laura’ has left torrential rains and floods in the Dominican Republic, as well as damage to more than 700 homes. The president, Luis Abinader, toured some of the affected areas in the Santo Domingo metropolitan region on Sunday and plans to fly over more areas on Monday to verify the degree of destruction.
Abinader, who has expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, has promised that his new government will work to evacuate people living in floodplains. It is, he explained, a “comprehensive” plan that will foreseeably take “several years”, reports the newspaper ‘Listín Diario’.
He has also advocated recovering the electricity supply as soon as possible, suspended in several areas. “We instruct the electricity distributors to accelerate the work and thus be able to restore electricity service to the affected homes,” he posted on Twitter.
The situation has been repeated in neighboring Haiti, where the authorities have been able to confirm nine fatalities and two missing persons, one of them a baby. The director of Civil Protection, Jerry Chandler, has acknowledged in statements to ‘Le Nouvelliste’ that it is a “partial” balance.
The Haitian president, Jovenel Moise, has lamented on Twitter the “significant floods” left by the passage of ‘Laura’ and has promised to provide aid to the affected areas. Moise, who has offered his condolences to the victims ‘families, has urged the population to follow the authorities’ recommendations to avoid risks.
The storm entered Cuba this Sunday night through the province of Santiago, where there have already been power outages as a result of the storm, according to the official press. While Cuban Civil Defense has decreed the alarm phase for the provinces from Guantánamo to Camagüey and the alert phase for the provinces from Ciego de Ávila to Villa Clara.
