Venezuela sends 22 specialists to Cuba to repair damage from Melissa

The professionals in the electrical, transportation, and public works sectors were seen off at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetía, La Guaira state, by Venezuelan Vice Minister for Latin America, Rander Peña, and the Cuban Ambassador to Caracas, Jorge Luis Mayo, among other officials.

The storm made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale in late October, striking Cuban provinces such as Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma, and Guantánamo, where it caused extensive damage to electrical, housing, and agricultural infrastructure.

At the farewell, Peña explained that the best specialists in each field had been selected and were tasked with reinforcing the Cuban teams working to restore the power grid through diagnostics and “continuing to send aid in the coming hours.”

He recalled the air shipment a few days earlier, first of 26 tons of food, construction materials, and supplies, sent just hours after the hurricane passed, and then more than 5,000 tons by sea on the ALBA ship “Manuel Gual.”

The executive secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) emphasized that these shipments are “an expression of love from one people to another.” (Take from Prensa Latina)