Cuba experienced another collapse of its electrical grid on Sunday, marking the fourth such failure in just 48 hours.
This latest outage comes as a hurricane made landfall, exacerbating the island’s struggles and threatening further damage to its aging infrastructure, according to Reuters.
Earlier on Sunday, officials announced progress in restoring power after several false starts. However, millions of residents remained without electricity more than two days after the initial grid failure.
“Restoration work began immediately,” the country’s energy and mines ministry said on X.
Hurricane Oscar made landfall on the Caribbean island on Sunday, bringing strong winds, a powerful storm surge, and heavy rain to eastern Cuba.
The storm poses a significant threat to the government’s efforts to restore electricity and could further complicate recovery efforts in the wake of the recent grid collapses.
Cuba’s meteorological survey warned of “an extremely dangerous situation” in eastern Cuba, while the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kph) as the storm made its way across the island.
“On the forecast track, the center of Oscar is expected to continue moving across eastern Cuba tonight and Monday, then emerge off the northern coast of Cuba late Monday and cross the central Bahamas on Tuesday,” the Hurricane Center said.
The Communist-run government of Cuba has canceled school through Wednesday, a nearly unprecedented move, in response to Hurricane Oscar and the ongoing energy crisis.
Officials have advised that only essential workers should report to work on Monday.
The repeated grid collapses represent a significant setback in the government’s efforts to restore power to residents who are already grappling with severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.
The challenges faced in the first 48 hours highlight the complexity of the restoration efforts and the precarious state of the country’s electrical grid.
Just before the latest collapse on Sunday, Cuba had managed to restore power to 160,000 clients in Havana, providing a brief glimmer of hope to residents.Cuba experienced another collapse of its electrical grid on Sunday, marking the fourth such failure in just 48 hours.
