An hour of heavy rain was enough this Wednesday to turn several streets in Centro Habana into actual rivers, with the water reaching up to the residents' knees and a tractor being used to transport people between the flooded areas.
Videos shared on social media show streets completely flooded, residents trying to navigate through the murky water, and vehicles almost entirely engulfed by the flood.
«It has only rained for an hour and everything is overflowing,» reported a resident who documented the situation in the Santa Ana area for more than seven minutes in a video shared by DISA.
The images also show an orange tractor moving through one of the flooded streets with several people on board.
"They're rivers, they’re flooded rivers," the man remarked as he surveyed the area.
The resident attributed the quickness of the flooding to the poor condition of the drainage system.
"When it rains heavily here in Havana, everything gets flooded. Since all the drains and everything are clogged, the water has nowhere to go," he explained.
The habanera Yaquelin Jiménez summarized another combination that further complicated the situation for the residents on Facebook.
"Everything at once. In a blackout. In flooding. And without electricity. And raining at the same time," they lamented.
Heavy rains over western Cuba
The Institute of Meteorology of Cuba (INSMET) reported in the afternoon about the presence of showers, rainfall, and thunderstorms in the western half of the country, particularly in the interior and northern areas.
The agency also warned that the rainfall could continue throughout the night.
Flooding once again highlights one of the issues that Havana residents point out every time there is a heavy downpour: blocked sewers, accumulated trash, and a deteriorated drainage infrastructure unable to quickly evacuate large volumes of water.
This is not the first episode of heavy rainfall to strike the capital during September.
On September 12, José Martí International Airport recorded 71.8 millimeters of rain in just one hour.
The heavy rainfall during those days also caused damage to homes in several municipalities of Havana.
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