Havana/Port-au-Prince/Mexico City - Hurricane Ike was by Monday a serious threat to the whole of Cuba.
As early as Sunday afternoon, the surging sea in north-eastern Cuba had built waves several metres tall and forced its way deep into the coastal towns in the province of Holguin.
By 10 pm local time, when the eye of the storm made landfall near Punta Lucrecia, some 800,000 people had already been taken to safety. Power was down, and people throughout the region waited in complete darkness for Ike to pass.
Communist Cuba's elderly revolutionary leader Fidel Castro published an article Monday under the headline "Besieged by hurricanes."