Hurricane Oscar hits Cuba, paralyzed by giant power outage

Photo: Ramon Espinosa Associated Press Residents walk down the street using a phone flashlight during a power outage in Havana, Cuba, on Saturday.

Jordane Bertrand – Agence France-Presse in Havana

Published at 8:48 p.m.

• Americas

The Hurricane < i>Oscar made landfall Sunday night in eastern Cuba, as the island has been facing a massive power outage for three days that authorities have been struggling to resolve.

Oscar made landfall Sunday in eastern Cuba, with winds approaching 130 km/h, the U.S. Hurricane Center said.

According to the source, Oscar made landfall on the Cuban coast in Guantánamo province, near the city of Baracoa, on the island's far eastern tip, at 5:50 p.m.

“Hurricane Oscar has made landfall in the vicinity of Baracao,” the Cuban Meteorological Institute confirmed on its Facebook page. “The Maisi Point weather station reports sustained winds of 80 km/h and a gust of 116 km/h at 5:25 p.m.”

Oscaris hitting Cuba in the midst of an energy crisis, with the island bracing for a third night without power due to a power outage Friday at the main thermoelectric plant in the west of the country that shut down the grid.

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• Massive power outage paralyzes Cuba

Authorities in the east of the island are “already working hard to protect the population and economic resources, given the imminence of Hurricane Oscar,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel in a message published Saturday evening on X.

The government hopes to restore electricity Monday evening.

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“We can talk about the fact that between tomorrow, Monday morning, afternoon, or evening,” the service will be restored for the majority of Cubans, said the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy.

A few hundred thousand Cubans were able to benefit from a few hours of electricity on Sunday, before the entire electrical system was paralyzed again, according to the national electricity company.

“A new disconnection of the national electrical system has occurred. The restoration work will resume immediately,” the Ministry of Energy and Mines said on X late Sunday afternoon.

“Really serious”

On Thursday, on the eve of the blackout, the Cuban president announced that the island was in a situation of “energy emergency” due to difficulties in buying the fuel needed to power its power plants, due to the tightening of the embargo that Washington has imposed on the island since 1962.

“It’s really serious, there’s no life here, this country can’t take it anymore,” laments Serguei Castillo, a 68-year-old mason. “For two days, I’ve been eating nothing but croquettes, pizzas and other junk,” he tells AFP, angrily.

“If your electricity is cut off for four or five hours, it’s still okay, but this… It’s a lack of respect for the people. “I have no other way to describe what is happening to us,” says Isabel, 51, who refuses to reveal her last name. “The country has been paralyzed for three days, it's too much!”

“Destroyed”

Luis Jiménez, a 22-year-old student, also wonders how Cubans will survive in the coming days, and what the future holds for his country.

“If this situation is not resolved soon, I don't know how we will survive,” he says. “It's really not possible anymore. This is a country in ruins, destroyed.”

For the past three months, Cubans have been suffering from increasingly frequent power outages, with a national energy deficit of 30%. On Thursday, the deficit had reached 50%.

In recent weeks, in several provinces, the outages have lasted more than twenty hours a day.

In Cuba, electricity is produced by eight old thermoelectric power plants, sometimes out of order or undergoing maintenance, as well as by several floating power plants rented from Turkish companies, and by generators.

Power outages were one of the triggers for the historic protests of July 11, 2021.

In September 2022, the island had already experienced a widespread “blackout” after Hurricane Ian struck the west of the island. It took several days for the capital to fully restore electricity and several weeks for the entire island.