Hurricane Melissa struck eastern Cuba in October 2025, causing massive floods in Río Cauto, Granma, and exposing deep inequalities. Solidarity efforts and official recovery continue, but long-accumulated poverty persists in vulnerable communities. Humanitarian aid provides immediate relief, though it does not transform the underlying reality.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Santiago de Cuba at 3:10 a.m. on October 29, 2025, with maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h. Hours earlier, it had passed over Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, the most powerful in 90 years and the strongest of the Atlantic season ending November 30. Its path through mountainous areas brought record-breaking heavy rainfall, causing massive runoff, flash floods, and large-scale inundations in places like Río Cauto in Granma province.
Damage was severe across all eastern provinces, especially in vulnerable communities. In Río Cauto, images reveal deep, long-accumulated poverty, as if living conditions had remained unchanged for a century. Cauto del Paso, a flat rural community with around 500 inhabitants, has 162 homes in fair or poor condition, lacking a family doctor, workplaces, cultural or sports facilities, and now barely any roads. Only the floods from Flora in 1963 and Melissa completely buried the area in water and mud.
In Grito de Yara, there has been no electricity or water since before Melissa. Charcoal sells rarely at 1,000 pesos per sack, and many use wood or plastic stoves for cooking. At the evacuation center in Ernesto Che Guevara semi-boarding school, hundreds from over 40 families have lived for more than 20 days in poor conditions, smelling of urine and sweat due to insufficient bathrooms.
Solidarity emerged with the “Río Cauto in Our Hands” caravan, organized by Río Cauto residents in Havana, supported by the private company Pedro Carr, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), and local authorities. They delivered free food and hygiene kits, canned goods, insect repellent, household appliances, and rechargeable lamps to Cauto del Paso, Grito de Yara, and Cauto Embarcadero, while surveying additional needs for future aid.
In a National Defense Council session on November 18, 2025, led by Miguel Díaz-Canel and Manuel Marrero, recovery progress was reported: electricity at 84.8% in the east (Granma at 96.19%), water at 88% in Santiago, and landline telephone at 83.2%. Yet poverty affects 40-45% of Cubans, per sociologist Mayra Espina, and 42% of children face food poverty, above UNICEF's regional average.