The young Alejandro, better known as Toti and living in Cayo Granma, in the bay of Santiago de Cuba, lost everything after Hurricane Melissa passed through, as he shows the rubble where his house once stood, surrounded by wet mattresses, collapsed walls, and the despair of lacking food and medicine for his family.
The video was shared on social media profiles of Conducta Dade, a project that highlights the stories of Cubans in vulnerable situations and is now focusing on those like Toti, who are facing the total loss of their homes due to the hurricane.
"I lost everything... the roof, the furniture, the books, the girl's clothes," she says, her voice breaking as she surveys her devastated home.
Her testimony reflects the human drama that Melissa left behind in one of the hardest-hit areas of the province of Santiago de Cuba.
"Up to this moment, we have not been able to recover anything. We have nothing to eat, no milk for the little girl, and no money to buy food," laments the young man, who says he will spend the night at a neighbor's house.
The images reveal collapsed roofs, destroyed appliances, and a family without resources to start over, amidst the institutional silence that weighs on the most affected communities.
The community of Cayo Granma is overwhelmed by devastation following the impact of Hurricane Melissa.
The cyclone, which struck the eastern part of Cuba as a category 3 storm, caused the destruction of numerous homes and the complete loss of material possessions for many families.
Evidence of the disaster is circulating on the Facebook platform, specifically in the group "Amigos del Cayo," where several users have posted videos capturing the extent of the damage.
These recordings confirm the violent impact on the structures of the small islet located at the entrance of Santiago Bay.
The images shared in the virtual community depict a scene of devastation: completely collapsed residences, torn roofs, and overturned boats, the result of the intense winds and strong waves.
A resident of the Chicharrones neighborhood in Veguita de Galo, Santiago de Cuba, showed in a video sent to CiberCuba how his home was devastated after the storm. In the yard, there are only remnants of boards, twisted zinc sheets, and fallen trees on the affected person's furniture and bed.
In Contramaestre, an entire neighborhood was submerged in water and mud after the overflow of several rivers that cross the area.
Devastated homes, uprooted trees, and roads blocked by tons of rubble is the bleak landscape left by the storm in Guamá, the coastal municipality of Santiago de Cuba where Melissa made landfall on Wednesday with winds of around 200 km/h.
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