World ROUND-UP: Gustav 'like nuclear blast'.

FIDEL Castro has likened Hurricane Gustav's destruction in Cuba to a nuclear explosion.

He suggested the storm would cost the government "30 or 40 times" more than pounds 50m in losses.

In an essay published yesterday, the 82-year-old former president wrote that television footage of the devastation on Isla de la Juventud off the country's mainland reminded him of "the desolation I saw when I visited Hiroshima".

About 476,000 Cubans were evacuated, and there were only 19 injuries and no deaths.