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Hurricane Wilma's waves crash into Havana
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-24 16:00
Massive waves churned by Hurricane Wilma crashed into Cuba's capital city
early Monday, flooding a coastal highway and seeping into nearby neighborhoods
of old, crumbling buildings.
The outer bands of Wilma also drenched western Cuba and flooded evacuated
communities along the island's southern coast after the hurricane clobbered
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The extent of damage in Cuba's north was not
immediately known.
In Cancun, Mexico, troops and federal police on Sunday worked to control
looting at stores and shopping centers ripped open by Hurricane Wilma on
Saturday, as hunger and frustration surfaced among Mexicans and stranded
tourists.
Police shot into the air to scare looters away from a shopping center, and
crowds responded by hurling rocks and chucks of concrete. In one downtown block,
looters pried open the metal shutters of stores and emptied the entire block,
despite knee-high water. They would run away when soldiers arrived, only to head
back when they left.
A cyclist passes a wave hitting the retaining
wall of the Malecon boulevard in Havana before the threat of Hurricane
Wilma, Saturday Oct. 23, 2005. [AP] | "As soon as
the hurricane arrived, the people went robbing," said Eva Bernabe. "It's sad
because Cancun is a relaxed place. We're good people. It's not like this
normally."
In downtown Cancun, officials feared looters would turn on tourists, so they
quickly evacuated more than 30 foreigners from an area overrun by people raiding
stores.
Arturo Campos said his shoe store was emptied by looters
"The hurricane was ugly," he said. "The people were worse."
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