A hurricane hit Cuba on Sunday (October 20, 2024) as the island nation’s authorities scrambled to restore power after mass blackout across the country.
The expected arrival of Hurricane Oscar, just days after the failure of Cuba’s largest power plant, paralyzed the national grid and piled more pressure on a country already struggling with skyrocketing inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Saturday in a social media post that authorities in the eastern part of the island were “working hard to protect people and economic resources, given the impending arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”
“With winds of 140 km (85 mph), Oscar is forecast to reach eastern Cuba on Sunday, where heavy rain is expected,” according to the US National Hurricane Center.
Read also: Cuba’s cash crisis is leading to long lines and growing frustration
The Cuban presidency said in another post on social media that progress had been made in restoring power, with 16 percent of consumers receiving electricity and about 500 megawatts being generated.
That was a fraction of the country’s 3,300 megawatt demand on Thursday, a day before the grid crashed and the government declared an “energy emergency” after weeks of prolonged blackouts.
The power grid was damaged in a chain reaction on Friday due to the unexpected shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the largest of eight aging coal-fired power plants on the island, according to the head of power supply at the Ministry of Energy, Lázaro Guerra.
The National Electricity Company (UNE) said it was able to generate a minimum amount of electricity to restart the power plants on Friday evening, but by Saturday morning it had experienced what the official Cubadebate news channel called “a new, complete blackout of the electricity grid. “
Most neighborhoods in Havana remained dark Saturday, except for hotels and hospitals with emergency generators and the very few private homes with such a backup in the economically struggling nation.
“God knows when the power will come back,” said Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic who had to walk almost five kilometers (three miles) because of the lack of public transport amid the blackout.
Yaima Vallares, a 28-year-old dancer, said AFP that “everything is very difficult. We have had this eclipse for almost a day, which makes our life so difficult.”
“I try to keep calm because there’s too much stress about everything in this country,” she said.
The blackout followed weeks of blackouts lasting up to 20 hours a day in some provinces.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero on Thursday declared an “energy emergency”, suspending non-essential public services to prioritize powering homes.
Schools across the country are now closed until Monday.
“It’s crazy,” Eloy Fon, an 80-year-old retiree living in central Havana, told AFP on Friday.
“It shows the fragility of our electricity system… We have no reserves, nothing to sustain the country, we live day by day.”
Leaving Cuba
President Díaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening, during the presidency of Donald Trump, of the six-decade-long US trade embargo.
Cuba is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of its key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s – marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.
With no relief in sight, many Cubans emigrated.
More than 700,000 entered the United States between January 2022 and August 2024, according to US officials.
Although authorities mainly blame the US embargo, the island is also feeling the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has shaken its critical tourism sector, and economic mismanagement.
To boost its grid, Cuba has leased seven floating power plants from Turkish companies and added many small diesel generators.
In July 2021, power outages sparked an unprecedented outburst of public anger.
Thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting “We are hungry” and “Freedom!” in a rare challenge to the government.
One person was killed and dozens were injured in the protests. According to the Mexico-based rights group Justicia 11J, 600 people detained during the unrest remain in prison.
In 2022, the island also experienced months of hours of daily power outages, capped by a nationwide blackout caused by Hurricane Ian.
Published – October 20, 2024, 11:32 AM IST
