キューバで２回の強い地震 ハリケーンと停電に追い打ち

【ハバナＡＦＰ＝時事】米地質調査所（ＵＳＧＳ）は１０日、ハリケーンに相次ぎ見舞われ危機的状況にあるキューバの南部を２回の強い地震が襲ったと発表した。暫定報告によると建物や家屋に被害が出ているが、死者はいないもよう。（写真は、キューバ・グランマ州バヤモで地震後、屋外に出てきた住民）
　ＵＳＧＳによると、２回目の地震の方がより強く、規模はマグニチュード（Ｍ）６．８、震源はグランマ州南部バルトロメマソ沖深さ約２３．５キロだった。最初の地震は、その１時間前に発生。Ｍ５．９だった。
　キューバは過去３週間で二つのハリケーンに見舞われ、それに伴い、２回の全国規模の停電が発生したばかり。
　当局によると、先週のハリケーン「ラファエル」通過後に抗議デモが起き、一部の参加者が逮捕された。同国で抗議デモが行われるのはまれ。
　キューバ政府によると、１０日時点で首都ハバナの電力は約８５％で回復しているが、ハリケーン被害が最も大きかった西部アルテミサとピナルデルリオの２州では依然停電が続いている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/11/11-18:30）

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, told AFP, 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 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) deep, some 25 miles 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 nation-wide 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.
- 'People got scared' -
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, told AFP 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 AFP 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 told AFP.
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 percent 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.