Hurricane Oscar makes landfall in Cuba amid huge power outage

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HAVANA - Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Oct 20 evening in Cuba, where residents were preparing for more chaos and misery as the country grapples with a nearly nationwide power outage that is in its third day.

The arrival of Oscar, after the Oct 18 collapse of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the whole national grid, piles pressure on a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.

Cuba’s government said power would be reinstated for the majority of the country by Oct 21 evening.

The Category 1 storm made landfall in eastern Cuba at 5.50pm local time on Oct 20, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

Oscar was packing maximum sustained winds nearing 130kmh, the NHC said, and the storm was moving westward at 11kmh.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Oct 19 that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”

Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters on Oct 20 that electricity would be restored for most Cubans by Oct 21 night, adding that “the last customer may receive service by Tuesday.”

The power grid failed in a chain reaction on Oct 18 due to the unexpected shutdown of the biggest of the island’s eight decrepit coal-fired power plants, according to the head of electricity supply at the energy ministry, Mr Lazaro Guerra.

National electric utility UNE said it had managed to generate a minimal amount of electricity to get power plants restarted on Oct 18 night, but by Oct 19 morning it was experiencing what official news outlet Cubadebate called “a new, total disconnection of the electrical grid.”

Most neighbourhoods in Havana remain dark, except for hotels and hospitals with emergency generators and the very few private homes with backup systems.

“God knows when the power will come back on,” said Mr Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic, who had to walk almost 5km due to the lack of public transportation amid the blackout.

The blackout followed weeks of power outages, lasting up to 20 hours a day in some provinces.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero on Oct 17 declared an “energy emergency,” suspending non-essential public services in order to prioritise electricity supply to homes.

President Diaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening, during Donald Trump’s presidency, of a six-decade-long US trade embargo.

Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s – marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.

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Hurricane Oscar makes landfall in Cuba amid huge power outage

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