Barely two weeks after Oscar, Cuba was hit once again by a hurricane. Rafael left the island on Wednesday evening, still plunged into darkness due to the collapse of its electrical system, for the second time in two weeks.
Rafael, which made landfall west of the largest Caribbean island (ten million inhabitants), swept through Cuban territory for at least two and a half hours, before losing intensity as it entered the Gulf of Mexico .
The category 3 (out of 5) hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale caused a general blackout. “The violent winds caused (…) led to the disconnection of the national electricity system,” the national electricity company said on X.
On the southwest coast of the island, gusts reached between 130 and 140 km/h, according to the authorities. In Havana, they reached 110 km/h and could reach up to 185 km/h in the most affected areas.
“Collapse” of the electrical system
“The destruction of generators and the neutralization of transmission lines caused the collapse of the electrical system,” the director of electricity at the Ministry of Energy said a little later on television.
The country had already been without electricity for four days after an outage on October 18 in the country’s main power plant and due to fuel shortages.
>> Read about it: Almost all residents of the Cuban capital have power restored after four days in the dark
In Havana, where two million inhabitants live, the deserted streets were swept by strong gusts accompanied by intense rain. Shops, offices and schools had been closed in advance.
Oscar, then Rafael
On October 20, Oscar, a category 1 hurricane, had already hit the east of the island before transforming into a tropical storm. Serious flooding then surprised the residents of two locations in Guantanamo, San Antonio del Sur and Imias, where eight people died.
Last week, the Minister of Energy acknowledged that the situation in the electricity system remained “tense”, with power cuts continuing chronically. In September 2022, the island had already experienced a widespread power outage after the passage of powerful Hurricane Ian.
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