Cuba leader Raul Castro says island 'hard hit' by Sandy

1 November 2012 Last updated at 18:29 GMT

Cuba leader Raul Castro says island 'hard hit' by Sandy

Santiago on 26 October 2012 Raul Castro said the city of Santiago looked
like it had been bombed.

Cuban President Raul Castro says the eastern province of Santiago was
"hard hit" by Hurricane Sandy.

Eleven people died and more than 188,000 homes were damaged as the storm
passed over Cuba last week.

President Castro said Cuba's second largest city, Santiago, looked like
it had been bombed.

He urged those affected not to lose hope and said that no one would be
left destitute, but that the government would have to weigh up each case.

"We'll get over this, you're fighting people, we've known that for more
than fifty years," he told residents of Santiago on a tour of the worst
affected areas.

"The reality is much worse than what you can see in the pictures or on
TV," President Castro said.

A United Nations report says that Sandy destroyed almost 100,000
hectares (245,000 acres) of crops in eastern Cuba.

"Sugar cane was the single hardest hit followed by plantain and
bananas," the report says.

Vice-President Jose Ramon Machado said one of the biggest problems
facing the government was guaranteeing food supplies for the people in
the affected areas in the the coming months.

Cuba does not produce enough food to feed its population and spends
large amounts of money on importing food.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20166773