Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Sunday evening in eastern Cuba, which has been facing a giant power outage for three days that authorities are struggling to resolve.
Oscar made landfall on Sunday in eastern Cuba, with winds approaching 130 km/h, the US Hurricane Center (NHC) announced. According to this source, Oscar fell on the Cuban coast in Guantánamo province, near the town of Baracoa, on the far eastern tip of the island, at 9:50 p.m. GMT (11:50 p.m. French time).
“Hurricane Oscar made landfall near Baracao,” confirmed the Cuban Meteorological Institute (Insmet) on its Facebook page. “The Maisi Point weather station is reporting sustained winds of 80 km/h and a gust of 116 km/h at 5:25 p.m. local time (9:25 p.m. GMT). »
Restoration of electricity hoped for Monday evening
Oscar hits Cuba in the midst of an energy crisis as the island prepares to spend a third night without power due to an outage on Friday at the main thermoelectric plant in the west of the country that brought the grid to a complete halt .
Authorities in the east of the island “are already working hard to protect the population and economic resources, given the imminence of Hurricane Oscar”, assured President Miguel Diaz-Canel in a message published Saturday evening on X. The government hopes to restore electricity Monday evening.
See also: VIDEO. Cuba plunged into darkness after massive power outage
“We can talk about the fact that between tomorrow Monday morning, afternoon, or evening,” the service will be restored for the majority of Cubans, indicated the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy.
“Energy emergency” situation
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 (UNE).
“A new disconnection from the national electricity system (SEN) has occurred. Restoration work will resume immediately,” the Ministry of Energy and Mines indicated on X late Sunday afternoon.
Thursday, on the eve of the general blackout, the Cuban president announced that the island was in a situation of“energy emergency” faced with the difficulties in purchasing the fuel necessary to power its power stations, due to the strengthening of the embargo that Washington has imposed on the island since 1962.
More and more frequent outages
For three months, Cubans have suffered from power cuts that have become more and more frequent, with a national energy deficit of 30%. On Thursday, this deficit had reached 50%. In recent weeks, in several provinces, outages have lasted more than twenty hours a day.
In Cuba, electricity is produced by eight dilapidated thermoelectric power plants, sometimes broken down or under maintenance, as well as several floating power plants leased to Turkish companies, and 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 the passage of Hurricane Ian which hit the west of the island. Completely restoring electricity took several days in the capital and several weeks across the island.
