The heavy rains this Thursday caused severe flooding in the La Victoria neighborhood in Centro Habana, where water entered homes and businesses and partially submerged a car.
A video shared on Facebook by Liena Lopez Delgado shows the extent of the flooding and surpassed 93,000 views within a few hours. The images highlight the impact of the rains on a family home and a local butcher shop.
"The car is almost halfway submerged in water. It's for the butcher shop, because the water has flooded the butcher shop," the video's author can be heard saying.
September 2026 has seen a series of similar events in the Cuban capital: in the middle of the month, intense rains left over 300 mm in 24 hours in some areas of Havana, resulting in 26 completely collapsed homes and 122 with partial collapses.
That event also left 148 people housed in state centers and 762 who self-evacuated to the homes of family or friends. The municipalities hardest hit were Boyeros, Diez de Octubre, Cotorro, San Miguel del Padrón, Arroyo Naranjo, La Lisa, and Cerro.
This Thursday, the flooding was not limited to the La Victoria neighborhood. Streets were also reported to be flooded in Luyanó, Cuatro Caminos, El Vedado, Línea Street, and Fifth Avenue, according to reports collected by Infobae.
In some areas, the water reached knee-height, and it was necessary to use a tractor to transport residents between flooded zones.
The underlying problem is structural. The sewage system of Havana was built between 1908 and 1914 for a city of about 600,000 inhabitants, and today it must serve nearly two million people.
The network has approximately 1,755 kilometers of pipelines, mostly outdated and unable to drain large volumes of water quickly.
The chronic accumulation of garbage in the streets blocks drains and sewers, worsening the drainage collapse during any heavy downpour.
The Meteorological Institute (INSMET) warned this Thursday that a frontal trough will bring at least three days of rain to the west of Cuba, with showers and thunderstorms expected starting this Friday.
The agency clarified that "it is not a cold front, but it can bring rain," which suggests that new days of risk are ahead for urban infrastructure that has struggled to meet the demands of the city for decades.
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