Hurricane Oscar kills at least 6 people in Cuba, where a power outage lasting several days raises tempers

HAVANA, Cuba — The Cuban capital remained largely paralyzed Monday and the rest of the island braced for the fourth night of a massive power outage that has generated a handful of small protests and a harsh government warning that any unrest will be punished.

Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Sunday before crossing the east coast of the island on Monday in the form of a tropical storm accompanied by winds and heavy rains, killing at least six people after a night marked by demonstrations of several dozen of people in urban neighborhoods like Santos Suárez and central Havana.

Some banged pots and pans in the streets, while others demonstrated from their balconies. Protesters who said they had no water blocked at least one street with trash.

“The country is completely at a standstill,” said Mayde Quiñones, 55, a housewife. She takes care of her mother-in-law, who is in her eighties. “It hurts everyone, but especially the elderly.”

The Cuban government has low tolerance for civil disobedience and President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned on national television on Sunday that “we will not allow any vandalism or anyone to disturb the peace of the people.”

The prolonged nationwide power outage follows a massive outage Thursday evening, part of the energy problems that led to the largest protests in Cuba in nearly 30 years, in July 2021. These were followed by smaller local events in October 2022 and March 2024.

It’s all part of a deep economic crisis that has caused the exodus of more than half a million Cubans to the United States, and thousands more to Europe.

The Cuban government and its allies blame the 62-year-old U.S. trade embargo on the island for economic woes, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that “the Long-term mismanagement by the Cuban government of its economic policy and natural resources has certainly increased the difficulties of the Cuban population. »

Electricity remains relatively cheap but increasingly unavailable. The Cuban government said it produces 700 megawatts while peak demand can reach 3 gigawatts. Authorities said Monday afternoon that about 80 percent of Havana had intermittent electricity, but people were skeptical.

“We have the refrigerator full of food and we are afraid,” said Juan Estrada, a 53-year-old small business owner whose business in central Havana has not had constant electricity since Friday morning. .

Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told a news conference he hoped more reliable electricity would be restored by Monday or Tuesday morning, but classes remained closed at least until Thursday.

He said Oscar, which made landfall on the eastern coast Sunday evening, will bring “additional inconvenience” to Cuba’s recovery because it will hit a “region of high (electricity) production.” Major Cuban power plants, such as Felton in the city of Holguín and Renté in Santiago de Cuba, are located in the region.

Oscar then weakened into a tropical storm, but its effects are expected to linger on the island until Monday.

Many of Havana’s 2 million residents began cooking in the streets with improvised wood stoves before their food deteriorated in refrigerators.

People were queuing Monday to buy subsidized food and few gas stations were open.

The outage at the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday is the latest problem affecting power distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated between different regions at different times. The status of other Cuban power plants was unclear.

People queued for hours on Sunday to buy bread at the few bakeries that could reopen.

Some Cubans, like Rosa Rodríguez, had been without electricity for four days.

“We have millions of problems and none of them are solved,” Rodríguez said. “You have to come and get bread, because the local bakery is closed and they bring it from elsewhere.”

The power outage is considered the worst in Cuba since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged electrical installations. It took the government days to fix them.

The Cuban government announced emergency measures to reduce electricity demand, including suspending classes at schools and universities, closing some state-owned workplaces and cutting non-essential services.

Local authorities said the outage was due to increased demand from small and medium-sized businesses and residential air conditioners. Later, the blackout worsened due to breakdowns in old, poorly maintained thermoelectric plants and lack of fuel to operate some facilities.

Cuba’s energy minister said the country’s grid would be in better shape if not for two more partial outages as authorities tried to reconnect on Saturday. De la O Levy also said Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia, among other countries, had offered help.