Tropical storm Elsa makes landfall in Cuba

Havana, July 6 (IANS)
Tropical storm Elsa made landfall in Cuba with sustained winds of 95 km per hour, according to the latest report from the country's Institute of Meteorology (Insmet).

"Meteorological radar confirmed that at 1.40 p.m. on Monday, Elsa made landfall at the Cienaga de Zapata (Zapata Swamp), on the southern coast of the western province of Matanzas," Xinhua news agency quoted Insmet as saying.

Insmet experts hope the storm will weaken as it moves inland on its way out to sea again at an unspecified point between Matanzas and the western province of Artemisa.

Rain will continue to affect the central region of the country, with heavy rainfall in some locations, mainly in mountainous areas.

Due to the storm's current trajectory, Civil Defense lifted storm warnings for the eastern provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguin and Las Tunas, as well as central Camaguey and Ciego de Avila provinces.

Warnings are still in effect for Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Mayabeque and Havana.

The storm, which reached sustained winds of 120 kilometers per hour to classify as a Category 1 hurricane on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, weakened slightly on July 3 into a tropical storm.

Elsa is the first hurricane of the hurricane season in the Caribbean, which runs from June 1 to November 30, preceded by tropical storms Ana, Bill, Claudette and Danny.