HAVANA — Cuban authorities and international rescue teams worked through the night Tuesday into Wednesday to reach rural communities in the island's eastern provinces cut off by landslides and road damage following Sunday's devastating earthquake, the strongest to strike the region in nearly 150 years. Civil Defence officials confirmed rising casualty numbers as search and rescue crews from Cuba, Mexico, and several Caribbean nations deployed heavy equipment to clear blocked mountain routes leading to isolated towns in Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo provinces.
The 7.6-magnitude earthquake, which struck off Cuba's southeastern coast on June 8, sent tremors as far as Miami, Orlando, and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, rattling windows and prompting evacuations in coastal Florida cities. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel toured affected areas and declared a state of emergency in three eastern provinces, appealing for international humanitarian assistance including medical supplies, water purification equipment, and temporary shelters.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs activated its regional response mechanism for the Caribbean, with OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke confirming Wednesday morning that a rapid assessment team had landed in Havana and was coordinating with Cuban authorities on priority needs. The Pan American Health Organization also issued an alert warning of risks of waterborne disease outbreaks as water infrastructure was damaged across affected municipalities.
In southern Florida, emergency managers from Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe counties held joint briefings Wednesday to assess structural damage to older buildings, particularly in coastal zones where liquefaction and foundation shifting had been observed. The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the epicenter location approximately 25 kilometers southeast of Guantánamo Bay and cautioned that aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or above remained likely over the coming 72 hours.
Mexican federal authorities in Quintana Roo, where Cancún reported moderate shaking and brief panic on beaches popular with tourists, said no significant structural damage had been confirmed at major resort facilities. However, local government officials announced precautionary building inspections of older infrastructure in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. The event has drawn fresh attention to the seismic hazard profile of the Caribbean Basin, which seismologists note has historically been underestimated in regional disaster preparedness planning.