HAVANA, Cuba, CMC - President Raul Castro Monday said that the country would recover from the pounding from Hurricane Ike and urged authorities in the various provinces to take all measures to protect lives.

 

The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said that the center of Hurricane Ike was located near latitude 21.1 north, longitude 77.9 west or about 20 miles south of Camaguey in Cuba.

 

“Ike is moving towards the west near 14 miles per hour and a west to west northwest motion is expected over the next day or two. On this track, the center of Ike will move over or very near Central Cuba today and emerge into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico by late Tuesday,” the NHC said in its latest bulletin.

 

It said that the maximum sustained winds had decreased to near 100 miles per hour making the storm a Category Two hurricane on the Saffir-Simspon scale and that additional weakening is forecast as Ike moves over Central Cuba today.

 

The official Cuban news agency, Prensa Latina said Monday that President Castro had telephoned all “top authorities from each province threatened by the storm to use all available means to protect human lives, goods and resources of the State and people”.
A note published by the official Granma newspaper said that Castro “stressed the importance to be ready for the worst” and “insisted on the importance of continued preparation as a way to minimize damages”.

 

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said it had approved US$100,000 in emergency relief funds to help meet the immediate needs of Cubans affected by Hurricane Gustav.

 

But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it would be foolhardy to lift the decades old US trade embargo without the freeing of political prisoners in Cuba and the conduct of “free and fair elections,” among other reforms.

 

"We see nothing that suggests that has come about. What we can't do is to have the transfer of power from one dictatorial regime to another. That is not acceptable. I don't think that in the context of what we see now that the lifting of the embargo would be wise," Rice said.

 

The hurricane has been pounding Cuba bowing off roofs, toppling trees and flattening sugar cane fields as it moves towards the Gulf of Mexico.

 

The storm has been blamed for the deaths of at least 73 people in Haiti where the Executive Director of the Red Cross, Jean Pierre Giteau described the situation as a “crisis”.

 

Speaking on a radio programme in Trinidad and Tobago on Monday, Giteau said that the country would need to get as much assistance as possible over the next two days to deal with the situation.

 

The director of the civil defense Henri Louis Praviel said the authorities were searching for 16 more people, mostly children reported missing by their parents.

 

Last week, Tropical Storm Hanna killed 500 people when up to five meters of muddy water swept through the Haitian town of Gonaives triggered by torrential rains from the storm.

 

The authorities were on Monday preparing to open an overflowing dam in the Artibonite Valley inundating more homes and possibly causing lasting damage to a farming area.

 

Agriculture Minister Jonas Gay urged authorities in the area to evacuate “as soon as you can”.

 

CMC/pr/08