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Agence France-Presse

Two powerful earthquakes rocked southern Cuba in quick succession on Sunday, US geologists said, just days after the island was struck by a hurricane that knocked out power nationwide.
The quakes cracked walls and damaged homes, but did not appear to have caused any deaths, according to preliminary reports.
They left many residents running into the streets and badly shaken so soon after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, a category 3 storm, which struck the island last Wednesday.
“It’s the last thing we needed,” Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife from the town of Bayama in southern Cuba, said, adding that a wall of her house had been damaged.

The US Geological Survey measured the second, more powerful tremor on Sunday at a magnitude of 6.8 and 23.5km (14.6 miles) deep, some 40km off the coast of Bartolome Maso, in southern Granma province.
It came just an hour after a first tremor, which the USGS put at a magnitude of 5.9.
The quakes are the latest events in a cycle of emergencies for the Communist-run island following two hurricanes and two major blackouts in the last three weeks.
The island suffered a nationwide blackout on October 18 when its biggest power plant failed and it was then hit by Hurricane Oscar two days later.
The effects of last week’s Hurricane Rafael have sparked rare protests, with an unspecified number of people arrested, according to authorities.
Cuba has been suffering hours-long power cuts for months and is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the breakup of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s – marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.

The state-run newspaper Granma said no deaths had been immediately reported from Sunday’s quakes, but that they had been felt throughout eastern and central provinces of the Caribbean island nation.
“Here people quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very strongly,” Andres Perez, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in downtown Santiago de Cuba, said via telephone of the first quake.
“It felt very strong, really, my wife is a bundle of nerves,” he added.
“There are houses with cracked walls, others had walls falling down and some had their roofs collapsed,” Karen Rodriguez, a 28-year-old hairdresser, told Agence France-Presse from Caney de las Mercedes, a small town in Bartolome Maso.
Other residents in Bayamo, a city of some 140,000 people, described street poles swaying.
“People got scared, everyone came running out of the houses very scared,” 24-year-old welder Livan Chavez said.

The US tsunami warning system said no tsunami warning had been issued.
Hurricane Rafael left residents in Cuba without power for two days.
With concerns of instability on the rise, President Miguel Diaz-Canel has warned that his government will not tolerate attempts to “disturb public order”.
Local prosecutors said Saturday that an unspecified number of people had been arrested after demonstrations in the wake of Hurricane Rafael.
Around 85 per cent of residents of the capital had had their power restored on Sunday, according to the government, while the two worst-hit provinces in the west, Artemisa and Pinar del Rio, remain in the dark.


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Americas and the Caribbean

After hurricanes, 2 earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba

Cuban children play on a road after Hurricane Rafael last week. Photo: AP

People charge their mobile phones in the aftermath of Hurricane Rafael last week. Photo: AFP

Damage to buildings in Santiago de Cuba. Photo: Cuba’s Meteorological Institute via AFP

Damage to a house in Santiago de Cuba. Photo: Cuba’s Meteorological Institute via AFP

Damage to a house after earthquakes in Santiago de Cuba. Photo: Cuba’s Meteorological Institute via AFP

Cuba’s president warns against unrest over nationwide blackout

A blackout in Havana, Cuba, following the failure of a major power plant. Photo: AP

Havana’s seafront boulevard during a blackout. Photo: Reuters

Hurricane Oscar approaching the east of Cuba on Sunday. Photo: NOAA via AFP

To bolster its grid, Cuba has leased seven floating power plants from Turkish companies. Photo: Reuters

Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki spews ash days after a deadly eruption

Ash and smoke spill from Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, as seen from Lewolaga village in East Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Residential areas covered by volcanic ash on Wednesday, following the Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano eruptions in East Flores regency, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. Photo: Reuters

Firefighters advance on destructive blaze in California, aided by slower winds

Smoke rises from the Mountain Fire in Ventura County as seen from a commercial flight. Photo: AP

Ventura County firefighters work to extinguish hotspots at a home which was destroyed in the mountain fire. Photo: AFP

Wildfire near Los Angeles burns dozens of homes, thousands of people told to flee

Firefighters try to stop a fire in a building while a helicopter drops retardant in Camarillo, California. Photo: Reuters

An helicopter flies as smoke billows from the Mountain Fire in Santa Paula, California. Photo: Reuters

Firefighters and sheriff’s deputies push a vintage car away from a burning home in Camarillo, California. Photo: AP

Flames along a hillside in Moorpark, California. Photo: AP

Satellite views of homes before and after the Mountain Fire, at Camarillo Estates in California. Photo: Maxar Technologies via Reuters

Spain faces ‘incalculable’ bill after Valencia’s worst floods in a generation

Residents and volunteers carry out clearing duties in the flood-hit municipality of Paiporta, Valencia province on Novembe 4. Photo: EPA-EFE

A person walks next to mud-covered debris following heavy rains that caused floods, near Valencia, Spain, on November 4. Photo: Reuters

Debris floats on top of water in a flooded tunnel as workers use tubes to pump it out in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Valencia. Photo: AFP

A “Falla” figure structure made of cardboard and other materials is damaged in an area affected by floods in Spain, on November 4. Photo: AP

News

World

Americas

Back-to-back earthquakes follow two hurricanes and two major blackouts in the last three weeks


Back-to-back earthquakes follow two hurricanes and two major blackouts in the last three weeks.


Earthquakes

Natural disasters

Fidel Castro