By Rosa Tania Valdes HAVANA, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Spain shipped in 16 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Cuba on Friday, while tiny East Timor donated $500,000 and China anted up $300,000 as international help flowed into the island working to recover from devastating Hurricane Gustav. Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally, said it would help as did Colombia and Mexico, while arch-foe the United States offered $100,000 in emergency funds on the condition it go through relief groups, not the Cuban government. The United Nations, which sent in an adviser to conduct a joint damage assessment with the government, also said it had offered aid. Russia, Cuba's former Cold War ally, flew in two planeloads of goods on Thursday, and said two more were coming. The storm wrecked an estimated 100,000 houses and, according to former leader Fidel Castro, caused several billion dollars of damage when it struck western Cuba and the Isle of Youth on Saturday. Gustav's 150-mile-per-hour (240-km-per-hour) winds ripped off roofs, knocked over power lines and flattened crops and trees as it crossed the island on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. It later struck Louisiana. No deaths have been reported in Cuba, despite the extensive damage that Castro, in a commentary on Wednesday, equated to a nuclear bomb. He said scenes from the hardest-hit areas recalled Hiroshima, the Japanese city hit by a U.S. atomic bomb at the end of World War Two. Castro, ailing and 82, was formally replaced as president in February by brother Raul Castro, but writes frequent newspaper columns and appears to still play a role in the government he led after taking power in a 1959 revolution. Spain said its aid included electric generators, tents and personal hygiene articles. Russia brought tents, electric cables, sleeping cots and blankets. East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta announced his country's $500,000 donation during an official visit to Cuba. John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian affairs chief, said in New York the international body was "looking at the possibility" of providing aid to Cuba from its emergency response funds. If Cuba accepts, "I think it would be the first time they have been willing to take such assistance from us," he said. The United States has offered emergency funds to Cuba before, but Cuba has turned it down. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, Fidel Castro offered to send Cuban doctors in to help storm victims, but Washington did not accept. The United States has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba for 46 years and the two countries, just 90 miles (144 km) part, do not have diplomatic relations. (Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip in New York; editing by Jeff Franks and Eric Walsh)
Scott Friberg (L) and his wife J.J. Friberg of Raleigh, North Carolina leave the beach with their surfing kite as outer rain bands from Tropical Storm Hanna make their way into ...
Hurricanes and cyclones
