In recent hours, there has been an increase in Facebook groups, mainly from San Antonio del Sur and Imías, with heartbreaking pleas for help from desperate family members who, both from abroad and from other provinces in the country, have requested assistance in locating their loved ones.
"Does anyone know anything about the beach?" Leticia Polo asked in the Facebook group Revolico San Antonio del Sur.
"Until right now when I spoke with my mom, there were no fatalities at the beach. Many people lost their animals and material belongings," replied an internet user in the comments section, providing some relief to the person who asked.
In another harrowing testimony, a woman specified that in Pan de Azúcar, also in San Antonio, the houses had been buried by the flood, and people had to save their lives by breaking through the roofs of their homes.
"Please, does anyone know anything about the people from Macambo?" Luis Miguel Rodríguez was asking in another post.
"What do we know? Any breaking news, please? I don't have communication just like many others with the people over there," Cristian Matos asked.
In several cases, the posts requesting help and asking questions had little to no responses due to the poor connectivity that characterized yesterday in the areas most affected by Hurricane Oscar, which caused great damage in Guantánamo during the hours it lingered, with minimal movement, battering the province with rain.
Aseneht Leyva, for her part, resorted to directly posting photos of her sister, her nephews, and her brother-in-law - also residents of San Antonio del Sur - in an attempt to gather information.
"They are fine now. I saw them one or two hours ago," replied Freidi Ramirez.
"I need to know if anyone has information about Yateritas. I am worried about my family," wrote Fátima Lobaina Matos, although in the comments she found relief that Yateritas was doing well compared to other areas of Guantánamo.
In recent hours, the Cuban activist Yamilka Lafita -known as Lara Crofs- indicated that she had a brother on her father's side and a nephew "missing" in Imías.
"I just found out that I have a brother on my father's side and a nephew missing in Imías. Walter Lafita is 55 years old, Marcos Lafita is 27 years old," he wrote on Facebook.
Oscar Junior Guilarte Rodríguez, a Cuban resident outside of Guantánamo, offered 30,000 CUP as a reward for anyone who could provide information about his family, who were out of contact in the town of La Tinta, in the municipality of Imías, after the passage of the hurricane.
Through a post on Facebook, Guilarte expressed his despair, commenting that he has been without news of his loved ones and neighbors for five days.
In another plea for help, Noel Samón Méndez -Gallego was searching for his daughter and two grandchildren, who were trapped by the sudden floods in the municipality of San Antonio del Sur on Sunday night.
The province of Guantánamo, and in particular several areas of municipalities such as Imías and San Antonio del Sur, were left cut off due to the flooding caused by Oscar, which struck the region hard before weakening to a tropical storm.
Cuban authorities initially confirmed that six people lost their lives in San Antonio del Sur, as a result of the intense rains and the damage caused by the hurricane, including a mother and her five-year-old daughter.
Subsequently, a seventh victim was reported in the municipality of Imías, which was also devastated by the weather phenomenon.
Miguel Díaz-Canel publicly expressed condolences for the deaths and noted that rescue and damage assessment efforts are ongoing in the most affected areas, many of which remain flooded.
The coincidence of Oscar's passage through the eastern area with the collapse of the National Electroenergy System meant that hundreds of thousands of Cubans did not receive accurate information about the meteorological event, a situation that raised alarms among civil society, which perceived the risk it posed to the inhabitants of that region.
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