THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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HAVANA - Fidel Castro likened hurricane Gustav's destruction in Cuba to an atomic explosion, saying Wednesday it could mean billions of dollars in losses for the government.

Video images of the devastation on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud reminded Castro of "the desolation I saw when I visited Hiroshima, which was the victim of an attack of the first atomic bomb in August 1945," the ailing former president wrote in a column carried in government news media.

Gustav reached Category 4 strength with winds of 220 kilometres per hour when it slammed into the outlying island Saturday, then crossed a tobacco-rich swath of the western province of Pinar del Rio on mainland Cuba before re-entering the Gulf of Mexico and continuing to the United States.

Gustav's winds were down to about 175 km/h by the time its centre hit Louisiana two days later.

Cuban authorities evacuated 467,000 people ahead of the storm and reported only 19 injuries and no deaths.

But Gustav tore roofs off many homes, schools and businesses and completely levelled others, while tossing trees and telephone poles and smashing electric towers. Cuba says that about 100,000 homes across the island were damaged.

The government has not announced how much it will cost to repair Gustav's damage, but Castro suggested it could run into the billions of dollars.

Apparently referring to Cuba's population of more than 11 million, Castro wrote that "one hundred million dollars means only nine dollars per inhabitant and we need much more."

"We need 30, 40 times that amount only to meet our most elemental needs," he wrote. "The effort should come out of the work of our people. No one can do it for us."

Castro suggested that repairs to infrastructure would have to wait: "Now the battle is feeding the victims of the hurricane; the difficulty is not in re-establishing electricity like it was before."

Castro, 82, has not been seen in public since July 2006, though he writes essays published regularly in the Cuban press. He ceded power to his younger brother Raul in February.