Thousands of Cubans flee Albertos path

Thousands of Cubans flee Alberto's path
Miami, United States
12 June 2006 10:40

United States officials warned on Monday the season's first tropical
storm could unleash "life-threatening" rains as Cuban officials
evacuated 25 000 people from Alberto's path.

"Alberto is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 10 to 20
inches [25 to 50cm] over the western half of Cuba with isolated totals
of 30 inches [75cm] over the higher terrain," the US National Hurricane
Centre said.

"These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud
slides," the Miami forecasters cautioned.

In Cuba, eight people were injured and 52 homes damaged by a
storm-related tornado in Nueva Paz, south of Havana on Sunday,
government television said. Four of the homes were complete losses, it said.

About 400 people were evacuated in Havana where authorities are wary of
storm damage to the old and often fragile housing stock in a densely
populated city of more than two million. Cuba's total population tops
11-million.

The US centre issued a tropical storm watch for the western coast of
Florida.

At 6am GMT, the centre of the broad circulation of Alberto was about
550km south-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida and about 620km
south-west of Cedar
Key, Florida, the NHC said.

"Alberto is moving toward the north-northeast near 10km per hour and a
turn toward the north-east is expected during the next 12 to 24 hours,"
the forecasters said.

The storm was packing maximum sustained winds near 75kph with higher
gusts and little change in strength was expected during the next 24
hours, they added.

Cuban Civil Defence officials evacuated 25 000 persons from low-lying
areas in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba. The Isle of Youth, south of
Havana, was cut off from air and sea transportation because of heavy
rains, local television news reported.

Alberto is the first tropical depression of the season to gain
tropical-storm strength, and thus the first to earn a proper name.

Tropical storms have sustained winds of between 63kph and 118kph --
beyond that, they are classified as hurricanes.

Two thousand students in Cuba were sent home from schools on Saturday,
the official National Information Agency said.

Four medical surgical brigades were set up in Mantua, Guane, Minas de
Matahambre and La Coloma, while two more were ready for deployment,
officials said.

In the past two weeks, torrential rains killed seven people in Havana
and two others in the eastern part of the country.

Alberto is the first storm since the close of last year's
record-breaking Atlantic season of 28 storms, 15 of which became hurricanes.

Weather experts have forecast between eight to 10 hurricanes -- six of
them major -- during the official June 1-November 30 hurricane season.

Last year, Hurricane Katrina killed 1 300 people and displaced tens of
thousands along the US Gulf coast. New Orleans is still battling to
recover, and engineers have warned its levees could not withstand
another battering. - Sapa-AFP

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