HAVANA (AP) 鈥� Many Cubans waited late Sunday as electricity on much of the island had yet to be restored days after an island-wide blackout. Their concerns were heightened as Hurricane Oscar , lashing the beleaguered island with heaving rain and wind.
Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said in a press conference he hopes the country's electricity grid will be restored on Monday or Tuesday morning.
But he recognized that Oscar, which hit the island's eastern coast Sunday evening, will bring 鈥渁n additional inconvenience鈥� to Cuba's recovery since it will touch a 鈥渞egion of strong (electricity) generation.鈥� Key Cuban power plants, such as Felton in the city of Holgu铆n, and Rent茅 in Santiago de Cuba, are located in the area.
Rain and thunderstorms were reported in Cuba's eastern provinces and strong two-meter swells were hitting the seafront promenade in the city of Baracoa, near where Oscar made landfall. No deaths have been registered so far, but local media reported damage to roofs and walls.
Some neighborhoods had electricity restored in Cuba鈥檚 capital, where 2 million people live, but most of Havana remained dark. The goes beyond lighting, as services like water supply also depend on electricity to run pumps.
People resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before the food went bad in refrigerators.
In tears, Ylenis de la Caridad Napoles, mother of a 7-year-old girl, says she is reaching a point of 鈥渄esperation.鈥�
The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday, which caused the collapse of the island's whole system, was just the latest in a series of problems with energy distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated to different regions at different times of the day.
People lined up for hours on Sunday to buy bread in the few bakeries that could reopen.
Some Cubans like Rosa Rodr铆guez have been without electricity for four days.
鈥淲e have millions of problems, and none of them are solved,鈥� said Rodr铆guez. 鈥淲e must come to get bread, because the local bakery is closed, and they bring it from somewhere else.鈥�
About half of Cuba was plunged into darkness on Thursday evening, followed by the entire island on Friday morning after one of the plants failed.
Besides the Antonio Guiteras plant, whose failure on Friday affected the entire national system, Cuba has several others, and it wasn鈥檛 immediately clear whether they remained functional.
The blackout was considered to be Cuba鈥檚 worst in two years after Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged power installations. It took days for the government to fix them. This year, some homes have spent up to eight hours a day without electricity.
Cuba鈥檚 government had said on Saturday that some electricity had been restored after one of the country鈥檚 major power plants failed. But the 500 megawatts of energy in the island鈥檚 electricity grid, far short of the usual 3 gigawatts it needs, had quickly decreased to 370 megawatts.
Even in a country that is used to outages as part of , Friday鈥檚 collapse was massive.
The Cuban government has announced emergency measures to slash electricity demand, including suspending school and university classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling nonessential services.
Local authorities said the outage stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residential air conditioners. Later, the blackout got worse because of breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven鈥檛 been properly maintained, and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.
Cuba's energy minister said the country's grid would be in better shape if there had not been two more partial blackouts as authorities tried to reconnect on Saturday. De la O Levy also said Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia, among other nations, had offered to help.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Oscar made landfall on Cuba's eastern coast after striking the southeastern Bahamas earlier in the day. The center said the storm鈥檚 center hit the province of Guantanamo, near Baracoa, on Sunday evening. Its maximum sustained winds were 75 mph (120 kph).
The system is expected to move across eastern Cuba Sunday night and Monday. Forecasters said 6 to 12 inches (15.2 to 30.5 centimeters) of rain are expected across eastern Cuba through early Wednesday, with some isolated locations getting up to 18 inches (45.72 centimeters). A storm surge of up to 3 feet (0.91 meters) in some areas of Cuba鈥檚 north shore in the area was possible, the center said.
Oscar was expected to weaken over eastern Cuba before making a turn to the northeast and approaching the central Bahamas on Tuesday, the center said.
The storm鈥檚 center late Sunday was located about 45 miles (75 kilometers) east of Guantanamo.
Oscar made landfall on Great Inagua island in the Bahamas earlier Sunday.
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Andrea Rodriguez And Milexsy Duran, The Associated Press
