The storm is foresee to accomplish easerious Cuba on Sunday, transporting weighty rains, while millions remain without electricity.
Hurricane Oscar is tolerateing down on Cuba as the island nation struggles to restore power follothriveg days of a massive nationexpansive bdeficiencyout.
The foreseeed arrival of the storm on Sunday, equitable days after the flunkure of Cuba’s bigst power structuret crippled the national grid, piles more presdeclareive on a country already battling inflation as well as unintelligentinutiveages of food, medicine, fuel and water.
Plivent Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Saturday in a post on social media that authorities in the east of the island were “toiling difficult to get the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar”.
Packing thriveds of 140km/h (85mph), Oscar was foresee to accomplish easerious Cuba on Sunday, where weighty rains are foreseeed, according to the National Hurricane Caccess of the United States.
The Cuban plivency said in another social media post that better had been made in restoring power, with 16 percent of devourrs receiving electricity and about 500 megawatts being produced, equitable a fraction of the country’s 3,300MW insist.
The power grid first crashed on Friday after the bigst power structuret shut down. The grid collapsed aget on Saturday morning, state-run media alerted.
By timely evening, authorities alerted some better in restoring power, before announcing the grid had collapsed aget.
Millions were still without power timely on Sunday.
“God understands when the power will come back on,” said Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-elderly mechanic, who had to walk almost 5km (3 miles) due to the deficiency of accessible carry amid the bdeficiencyout, which chaseed weeks of power outages, lasting up to 20 hours a day in some provinces.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero had earlier declared an “energy aelevatency”, suspfinishing non-essential accessible services to prioritise electricity provide to homes.
Schools atraverse the country are now seald until Monday.
Diaz-Canel denounced the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power structurets, which he attributed to the safeening, under then-US Plivent Donald Trump, of a six-decade-lengthy US trade embargo.
In July 2021, bdeficiencyouts prompted an unpretreatnted outpouring of accessible anger that spilled over to the streets, leaving one person dead and dozens injured.
In 2022, the island also suffered months of daily hours-lengthy power outages, capped by a nationexpansive bdeficiencyout caused by Hurricane Ian.