A strong earthquake of 6.8 magnitude shook southern Cuba yesterday Sunday morning (local time), without causing casualties, at a time when the island is still trying to recover from the passage of Cyclone Rafael, which caused another widespread power outage for two days.

The magnitude 6.8 earthquake, at a focal depth of 23.5 km, was centered in a marine area 40 km off the coast of Bartolome Maso, Granma province (southeast) and occurred at 11:49 (local time; 19:49 Greek time ), according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

It was preceded, about an hour earlier, in the same area, by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake, according to the same source. The area where it was most felt is about 800 kilometers from the capital Havana.

Earthquake tremors were felt in all eastern provinces and some central ones, according to official media. So far, no casualties have been reported, authorities said.

“We contacted the first secretaries of the (communist) party in Santiago de Cuba and Granma, the provinces affected by the recent earthquakes. We had landslides, damage to houses and power lines,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said via X.

In Canay de las Mercedes, a small village in the municipality of Bartolome Maso, Karen Rodríguez said the earthquake “was very felt”, adding that “about half an hour after the first tremor, we were returning home when the second one happened, and it was even stronger powerful”.

In the village “there are houses with cracked walls, some where the walls have collapsed and others where the roofs have collapsed,” the 28-year-old hairdresser told AFP by phone.

In Bayamo, the capital of the province of Granma, which has 140,000 inhabitants and is located about 50 kilometers from Bartolome Maso, residents also felt the two earthquakes.

“Poles (of the power grid) shook, roads, houses, for about twenty seconds (…) Then we had another one, which was also very strong. People were terrified, everyone was running, they came out of their houses,” said Livan Chavez, a 24-year-old welder.

Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife, said that a wall of her house collapsed. “That’s all we were missing!” he said.

Cuba is still trying to recover from Category 3 Hurricane Rafael, which hit the western part of the island last Wednesday, causing widespread blackouts for two days. The progressive restoration of electricity was continuing yesterday in the most affected areas, mainly in Havana.

About 85% of households in the capital have power back on, according to authorities, but in two western provinces, Artemisa, which was hardest hit by the cyclone, and Pinar del Rio, supply has not yet been restored.

Three weeks earlier, a previous blackout left more than 10 million without power. residents for four days, while at the same time another Category 1 hurricane, Oscar, struck the eastern tip of Cuba, leaving eight dead.

Earthquakes are generally frequent in the eastern sector of Cuba, since the tectonic plates of North America and the Caribbean intersect in the subsurface.

Last month, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake was recorded in Santiago de Cuba, without causing any damage.

In late January 2020, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake shook the Caribbean, in the maritime space between Cuba and Jamaica. It was felt in many provinces of Cuba, however, without causing casualties, although it prompted the authorities to proceed with the hasty evacuation of residents of areas of Havana.