The harmony of all forces has marked the pace of recovery 

The recovery work on the high tension towers in Artemisa does not stop. Photo: José Manuel Correa

Recognition to the way in which work is being done throughout the country, to the harmony among all the leading factors; a highlight to how the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior have been incorporated to the recovery tasks; and especially a praise to the people, to their discipline and effort in the midst of these hours in which Cuba has been hit by several natural phenomena.Such ideas were shared on Tuesday afternoon, from the Palace of the Revolution, by the President of the National Defense Council, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the meeting that this highest State body holds to follow up on how the country's recovery is progressing after the passage of the two most recent cyclones, and after the eastern part of Cuba was affected by seismic activity.Now the first battle has to do with erasing the traces of all those impacts, reflected the Head of State, who was accompanied by the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party, Roberto Morales Ojeda, and by the Minister of the Interior, Major General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, both members of the Political Bureau.Immersed in its recovery work, Cuba keeps its alarms on, now especially in view of a new tropical wave that -as Celso Pazos Alberdi, general director of the National Institute of Meteorology, explained on Tuesday- will be moving near the Central American coasts.The expert explained that at the moment there is a strong anticyclone over the archipelago, which does not allow the new phenomenon to reach Cuban territory. The models concerning what may happen in the next hours are still divergent, he said: some indicate a trajectory towards the coasts of Central America, and others point to a route towards the Gulf of Yucatan. Over the whole area, said the first colonel Luis Angel Macareño, second chief of the Civil Defense Organ, Cuba remains vigilant.SEISMIC ACTIVITYIn the meeting it was learned that 1,899 aftershocks of last Sunday's earthquake have been quantified. Through videoconference, the country's leadership was updated on the situation of the places affected by this phenomenon.In Santiago de Cuba, the authorities have held exchanges with the population that lived the impacts of the earthquake, and monitored the damages in Health and Education infrastructures.According to Eddie Galán Jiménez, member of the Political-ideological Bureau of Granma province, ten people were injured by the seismic activity, while 3,518 houses were affected. As for buildings of importance for the social life of the territory, 109 educational centers and 59 in the health sector were damaged.When inquiring about the electricity service in the affected areas of Granma, President Díaz-Canel received the information that 100% of the service has been reestablished. “A tremendous job they did”, said the President, to which the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, added the comment that the peasantry and the people helped a lot in this recovery work.The water service in the municipality of Pilón, communications and access roads. The Head of State inquired about these issues, and the answer was that everything has been recovered on those fronts. Regarding the Cabo Cruz lighthouse -which suffered severe damages in its upper part- the President spoke about the importance of designing a rigorous program to restore it.There are specialized groups in the areas that lived the experience of the earthquake, because the states of mind, as it is logical, need that kind of help, as they also require -as the Head of State reflected- constant communication.IN THE PATH OF HURRICANE RAFAELAccording to what the president of the Provincial Defense Council, Gladys Martínez Verdecia, informed at the check-up meeting, the province of Artemisa has recovered 41% of the centers affected by the passage of hurricane Rafael.Work is being done, she said, in the collection of solid waste. At the time of the check-up, 222 people were protected throughout the province; 4.58% of the total number of customers had electricity service; and more than 400 generators were operating in vital services of the territory.Other important data were shared by Gladys Martínez: 51.2% of the population has access to water service; 17,324 houses were affected; and 15,192 hectares of agriculture were damaged. Although progress is being made in the clean-up, the leader acknowledged that “the debris situation is of great magnitude”.As for the province of Mayabeque, the president of the Provincial Defense Council, Yuniasky Crespo Baquero, said that 97 people are protected; 93% of the territory's customers have electricity service; and 92.2% are receiving water.Díaz-Canel inquired about the progress of the sanitation works, to which Yuniasky replied that progress has been made. Batabanó, he said, is the most delayed municipality, although its progress is already over 60 %.In Havana -as reported at the meeting by the president of the Provincial Defense Council, Liván Izquierdo Alonso-, the number of people protected amounts to 86; 76.2 % of the population has water service; and 2,329 houses are affected. On Tuesday, it was also reported that 98.37% of the population of the capital city already has electricity service.PROBABLE CYCLONIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN SEAA wide area of low pressure associated with an active tropical wave, located south of Jamaica, will move slowly westward in the coming days, to enter the waters of the western Caribbean Sea, where oceanic and atmospheric conditions are favorable for the formation of a tropical depression.Dr. Miriam Teresita Llanes Monteagudo, head of the Forecasting Center of the Institute of Meteorology, explained to Granma that, taking into account this possibility and the prospect of a rapid development, the specialists of this entity will keep a close watch on the future evolution of the system.