‘TOO MUCH STRESS’: Reporters said that they witnessed small protests, while videos posted on social media showed other demonstrations in Havana
Reuters and AFP, HAVANA
A hurricane was bearing down on Cuba yesterday as efforts to restore power to the island were derailed for a third time late on Saturday, Cuban authorities said shortly before midnight, leaving millions in the dark and raising fresh questions over the viability of the government’s bid to re-establish electrical service.
The expected arrival of Hurricane Oscar, just days after the failure of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the national grid, piles more pressure on a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.
The grid first crashed around midday on Friday after the nation’s largest power plant shut down. It collapsed again on Saturday morning, state-run media reported.
People stand on a blocked street during a protest in Havana on Saturday amid a nationwide blackout.
Photo: Reuters
By early evening, authorities reported some progress restoring power before announcing the grid had once again collapsed.
“Tonight at 10:25pm the total disconnection of the national electro-energetic system occurred again,” the Havana Electric company wrote on Telegram late on Saturday.
The post was later removed from the company’s Telegram feed. It was not immediately clear why the post was removed, but millions were still without power on early yesterday.
The Cuban Ministry of Energy said shortly after the Havana Electric post that it was working to re-establish service, adding that “another disconnection” had occurred in the “western subsystem,” which includes the capital, Havana.
A third grid collapse marks a major setback in the government’s efforts to quickly restore power to exhausted residents.
Reuters reporters witnessed two small protests overnight, one in Marianao and the other in the Cuatro Caminos area of Havana. Various videos of protests elsewhere in the capital began to crop up on social media late on Saturday, although Reuters was not able to verify their authenticity.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday wrote on social media that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”
Packing winds of 140kph, Oscar was forecast to reach eastern Cuba yesterday, where heavy rains are expected, the US National Hurricane Center said.
Most Havana neighborhoods remained dark on Saturday, except for hotels and hospitals with emergency generators and the few private homes with that kind of backup.
“God knows when the power will come back on,” said Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic, who walked almost 5km due to the lack of public transportation amid the blackout.
Yaima Vallares, a 28-year-old dancer, said that “everything is very difficult. For almost a day we have had this blackout that makes life so hard for us.”
“I am trying to remain calm because there is too much stress over everything in this country,” she said.
