HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s capital was largely paralyzed Monday and the rest of the island braced for the fourth night of the storm. Massive blackout This has led to a handful of small protests and a stern government warning that any unrest will be punished.
Hurricane Oscar He was crossing the island East Coast With heavy winds and rain after a night that saw protests by dozens of people in urban neighborhoods such as Santos Suarez 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 garbage.
“The country has come to a complete standstill,” said 55-year-old housewife Made Quiñones. She takes care of her mother-in-law, who is in her eighties. “It hurts everyone, but the elderly most of all.”
The Cuban government does not tolerate civil disobedience, and President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned on national television on Sunday that “we will not allow any acts of sabotage, or allow anyone to disturb the peace of the people.”
The prolonged nationwide power outage followed a major blackout Thursday night, part of power problems that led to the largest protests in Cuba in nearly 30 years, in July 2021. Those protests were followed by smaller local protests in October 2022 and March 2024.
It’s all part of a Deep economic crisis This led to the exodus of more than half a million Cubans to the United States, with thousands more heading to Europe.
A resident looks at his cell phone in the street during a power outage after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Some Cubans will enter their fourth day without power. AP correspondent Donna Warder reports.
The Cuban government and its allies blame a 62-year-old U.S. trade embargo on the island for its economic woes, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the Cuban government’s “long-term mismanagement of its economic policy and policy is unacceptable.” Certainly, the resources have increased the suffering of the people in Cuba.
Energy remains relatively cheap but increasingly unavailable. The Cuban government said it will produce 700 megawatts when peak demand reaches 3 gigawatts. Authorities said Monday afternoon that about 80 percent of Havana had intermittent power but people were skeptical.
“Our refrigerator is 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 continuous power since Friday morning.
Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told a news conference that he hoped to have power restored more reliably by Monday or Tuesday morning, but classrooms remained closed until at least Thursday.
Oscar, which made landfall on the East Coast on Sunday evening, would bring “additional inconvenience” to Cuba’s recovery because it would touch a “strong (electricity) generating area,” he said. Major Cuban power plants, such as Felton in Holguin City and Rente in Santiago de Cuba, are located in the region.
Oscar later weakened into a tropical storm but its effects on the island were expected to persist until Monday.
Many of Havana’s two million residents have resorted to cooking with wood stoves in the streets before their food spoils in refrigerators.
People lined up on Monday to buy subsidized food and only a few gas stations were open.
The failure of the Antonio Guiteras station on Friday was the latest problem in power distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated between different regions at different times. The status of other power plants in Cuba was not clear.
People queued for hours on Sunday to buy bread from the few bakeries that could reopen.
Some Cubans, like Rosa Rodriguez, were without power for four days.
“We have millions of problems, and none of them are solved,” Rodriguez said. “We have to come to get bread, because the local bakery is closed, and they bring it from somewhere else.”
The power outage is the worst in Cuba since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged power facilities. It took days for the government to fix it.
The Cuban government announced emergency measures to reduce demand for electricity, including suspending classes in schools and universities, closing some state-owned workplaces, and canceling non-essential services.
Local authorities said the outage was caused by increased demand from small and medium-sized businesses and residential air conditioners. Later, the power outages were exacerbated by breakdowns in old thermal power plants that were not properly maintained, and a lack of fuel to operate some facilities.
Cuba’s energy minister said the country’s grid would be in better shape if two more partial power outages did not occur as authorities tried to restore connectivity on Saturday. De la O Levy also said that Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia, among others, have offered assistance.
Residents walk down a street during a power outage after a major power station malfunctioned in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, October 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
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Associated Press writer Josh Bock in Washington contributed to this report.
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