Hurricane Oscar leaves six dead in Cuba as power blackout eases

HAVANA - Hurricane Oscar left six people dead after hitting Cuba over the weekend during a major power blackout, the authorities said on Oct 21, as electricity was restored to most of the capital.

The lights went out for the Communist-run island’s

10 million people on Oct 18, after the collapse of the nation’s largest power plant crippled the whole grid.

By the afternoon of Oct 21, nearly 90 per cent of customers in Havana – home to some two million people – had power again, the capital’s electricity company said in a report published by state-run news portal Cubadebate.

“Of course I’m happy,” Ms Olga Gomez, a 59-year-old housewife in Havana, said after the lights came back on.

“I have an elderly senile mother of 85 and an autistic son. It’s very difficult when there’s no power,” she told AFP.

Many residents outside Havana, however, remained without electricity, according to the authorities.

Cuba was still bathed in darkness on Oct 21 when Hurricane Oscar made landfall in the eastern part of the country in the early evening as a Category 1 storm, causing several deaths and damage.

“Regrettably, according to preliminary information, six lives have been lost,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in televised remarks.

The storm caused severe damage in the eastern province of Guantanamo, he said.

Oscar weakened into a tropical storm as it moved inland, but was still expected to bring “significant, life-threatening flash flooding along with mudslides”, the US National Hurricane Centre warned.

Roofs and walls of houses were damaged, and electricity poles and trees felled, state television reported.

With concerns of instability rising in a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water, Mr Diaz-Canel warned on Oct 20 that his government would not tolerate attempts to “disturb public order”.

In July 2021, blackouts sparked an unprecedented outpouring of public anger, with thousands of Cubans taking to the street and chanting slogans including “Freedom!” and “We are hungry”.

Residents voiced frustration at the latest power outage, which crippled businesses and caused food in fridges to go bad.

“I feel like crying, like screaming. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said housewife Kenia Sierra.

Dozens of people took to the streets over the weekend in one neighbourhood, banging pots and pans and shouting: “Turn on the lights.”

Decrepit infrastructure

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.

Power was briefly restored on Oct 21 to a few hundred thousand inhabitants before the grid failed again, according to the national electric utility UNE.

The authorities have suspended classes and business activities until Oct 23, with only hospitals and essential services remaining operational.

Cuba generates only a third of the electricity it needs, so to bolster the grid, it has leased seven floating power plants from Turkish companies, and added many small diesel-powered generators.

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

But the island is in the throes of a broader economic malaise – the worst economic crisis, according to experts, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which heavily subsidised Cuba.

“Cubans are tired of so much... There’s no life here, (people) can’t take it anymore,” said Mr Serguei Castillo, a 68-year-old bricklayer. AFP