Via BBC News, an excellent report by Sarah Rainsford, datelined Santiago: Hurricane Sandy: Cuba struggles to help those hit. Excerpt (but read the whole thing, and ponder the likely consequences for dengue, cholera, and other waterborne diseases):
Siboney was a pretty town on the Caribbean coast of Cuba before Hurricane Sandy tore through.
Now, it is a disaster area.
In some spots there are piles of rubble in place of houses. Many of those buildings still standing have gaping holes in their walls; most are missing all, or part of, their roofs.
Residents are still struggling to come to terms with the destruction more than two weeks after the passage of the storm which killed 11 people in eastern Cuba and razed 15,000 homes.
"We have had cyclones before, but nothing like this devastation," says Trinidad, a pensioner whose house was drenched and possessions washed away when waves up to 9m (30ft) high smashed through Siboney.
The sick and infirm had been evacuated from the town, but everyone else was at home.
They talk about having watched a state TV forecast defining Sandy as a tropical storm; then the power went out.
The next morning they were hit by a Category Two hurricane.
