Hurricane Lili battered Cuba's tobacco industry when it roared across the western part of the island this week, destroying many of the curing houses used to dry tobacco for the country's world-famous cigars.
The hurricane, which crossed the island on Tuesday, "has been a catastrophe for most of the tobacco industry," the Communist Party daily Granma said Friday.
Lili's heavy rains and high winds flattened about 1,800 of the old curing houses in the tobacco-growing community of San Juan y Martinez in the western province of Pinar del Rio, leaving only 102 standing, the newspaper said.
There are about 14,500 curing houses in the region, and more than 10,000 of those were damaged or destroyed, the newspaper said. Some are made from weathered wooden planks, while others are made of zinc sheeting.
The precise extent of the damage has to be determined.
Tobacco leaves must be dried several months in curing houses before they are ready to be fashioned into cigars. Unless the leaves are cured correctly, they are useless for cigar-making.
Cuba's tobacco crop annually averages nearly 40.5 tons and produces more than 100 million cigars for export.