Earthquake rocks Cuba as residents struggle to recover from recent storms

A powerful earthquake has hit eastern Cuba, adding more problems to a country still reeling from a series of recent storms and blackouts.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported on Sunday that a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit about 40km (25 miles) south of the town of Bartolome Maso. No deaths or injuries have been reported so far.

“There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a social media post, adding that the areas of Santiago de Cuba and Granma were affected.

“We are beginning to assess the damage in order to begin recovery. The first and most important thing is to save lives,” he said.

People in affected provinces have said the earthquake was one of the most powerful they have felt in their lives – no small feat in an area that the USGS says has experienced 23 earthquakes of magnitude 5 and above in the last 50 years.

“We’ve felt earthquakes in the past, but nothing like this,” Santiago resident Griselda Fernandez told the Reuters news agency.

Other residents in Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, reported that the quake caused buildings to shake and that many people were still standing nervously in their doorways.