Muddy water and floating debris covered General Lee street in the 10 de Octubre municipality of Havana this Saturday, following the heavy rains that hit the Cuban capital during the afternoon.
A video shared by the page Tiempo a su Favor on Facebook shows the road completely covered in brown, murky water, with trash and debris floating around.
The images reveal at least one commercial property partially submerged, while buildings with deteriorated facades and electrical poles with exposed wires complete the scene of an area affected by neglect and a buildup of waste.
The episode is not isolated. Diez de Octubre ranks among the municipalities most affected by the rains that recently battered Havana, a larger-scale event that, according to data from the official site of the Presidency of Cuba, resulted in 26 completely collapsed homes and 122 with partial collapses in the capital.
The provincial secretary of the Party in Havana reported that in some areas, more than 300 millimeters of rain fell within 24 hours. Electrical disruptions affected 78 circuits and left over 250,000 customers without service, with around 120,000 people still without electricity at the time of the official check. Additionally, 148 individuals were housed in state centers, while 762 evacuated on their own to stay with family or friends.
The municipalities most affected by that incident were Boyeros, Diez de Octubre, Cotorro, San Miguel del Padrón, Arroyo Naranjo, La Lisa, and Cerro.
Behind every flood in Havana, there are two structural causes that the regime has not addressed for decades. The first is the century-old sewer system of the capital: built between 1908 and 1914 for a city of about 600,000 inhabitants, it now must serve nearly two million with a network of 1,755 kilometers of obsolete pipes that are unable to drain heavy rainfall.
The second issue is the garbage collection crisis. In 2026, only 44 out of 106 garbage trucks were operational in the capital due to a lack of diesel and mechanical failure, leaving a significant portion of the 24,000 to 30,000 cubic meters of solid waste generated by Havana each day uncollected. The accumulated garbage on streets and sidewalks blocks drains and sewers, turning every downpour into a flood with floating debris, exactly as shown in the video of General Lee.
This is not the first time this municipality has appeared in flood records. Heavy rains have caused similar scenes at various points in the capital on multiple occasions over the past years, and September, right in the peak of the hurricane season, is one of the rainiest months of the year in Cuba.
While the regime assesses the damage and provides official figures, the residents of General Lee are confronted with streets turned into rivers of mud and waste, with the underlying causes—obsolete infrastructure and collapsed services—showing no signs of resolution.
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