International News

HAVANA, Sept 22 (APP/Xinhua): Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived in Cuba on Friday to personally deliver support and donations to the Caribbean island hit by Hurricane Irma 10 days ago.
An official release published by the daily Granma highlighted that Maduro, accompanied by his “first combatant” Cilia Flores, was welcomed at the Havana International Airport by the Cuban President Raul Castro and First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Sending a plane with 7.3 tons of humanitarian aid two days after Hurricane Irma battered the island, Venezuela was the first nation to send relief materials to Cuba.
Previously, Caracas had sent a similar shipment to Antigua and Barbuda,
which was also deeply affected by the direct impact of the storm.
For its part, China will donate one million dollars in cash and send six successive flights with essential materials such as tents, generators,
mattresses, blankets, water pumps, and luminaries, among others.
Also as part of this humanitarian aid a Chinese rice shipment will reach the western port of Mariel in mid-October followed by five more ships.
Hurricane Irma struck almost the entire Cuban northern coast, leaving a
trail of 10 deaths and serious damage to housing and economic infrastructure, especially tourism facilities in the northern keys while devastating the national power grid.
Immediately after the passage of the storm, the Cuban government decreed the start of the “recovery phase” and called on the public to actively participate.
Cuban authorities announced that the first assessments on Irma’s effects on the country will be disclosed in the coming days following the release of preliminary studies.