Cuba says sugar cane damaged across country

HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike flattened 156,000 hectares of Cuban sugar cane and flooded more when it churned along the island for two days this week, state-run radio reported on Friday.

Cuba harvested 330,000 hectares of cane during the 2008 harvest, producing almost 1.5 million metric tons of raw sugar.

There are 700,000 hectares devoted to sugar cane in the country.

The president of the Cuban sugar technicians said the preliminary figures would no doubt increase as workers gained access to plantations where roads were washed out.

"The data is still preliminary and is going to increase ... I saw today a figure of 15,000 hectares flooded," Tirso Saenz told Radio Progresso.

Saenz said he was more worried about the flooded cane than that which was flattened, but that both situations were serious.

Top sugar reporter Juan Varela in his weekly radio program on Thursday said there was extensive damage to infrastructure.

Varela said at least 700 kilometers of plantation roads were washed out and 14 rail and highway bridges linking plantations to mills.

Earlier reports had 100,000 pieces of roofing blown off sugar industry mills and other installations.

The ministry in July said the 2009 crop would increase by 25 percent to 30 percent over 2008.

Cuba consumes a minimum 700,000 metric tons of sugar per year, and 400,000 metric tons are destined for China.

(Editing by John Picinich)