Cuba fights to return again from a nationwide blackout, then a storm that killed 7

By Andrea Rodriguez and Milexsy Duran | Related Press

HAVANA (AP) — A small city in Cuba was recovering Tuesday from flooding that killed no less than seven individuals after Oscar crossed the island’s jap coast as a tropical storm with winds and heavy rain.

Cuba’s capital was partially illuminated after a large-scale blackout generated a handful of protests and a stern authorities warning that any unrest can be punished.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated on state tv that rescue and restoration work continued within the city of San Antonio del Sur and officers hadn’t but entered some flooded areas. On Tuesday, he confirmed one other dying within the small city of Imias within the province of Guantanamo.

Folks in Havana collected backed meals Tuesday and stated the nation confronted an intensive restoration interval.

“There are lines everywhere you go,” metropolis resident Carlos López stated. “You get to a place and there are obstacles and obstacles.”

Tropical Storm Oscar disintegrated because it headed towards the Bahamas after making landfall in Cuba as a Class 1 hurricane. The remnants had been anticipated to drop as much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain throughout the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Modesto Hernández, who lives in central Havana, stated Tuesday that he and others “don’t know anything about what is going on.”

“These problems need to be solved now,” he stated. “We are in bad shape.”

Díaz-Canel warned on nationwide tv Sunday that “we’re not going to allow any vandalism, or let anyone disturb people’s tranquility.”

The extended nationwide blackout that adopted a large outage Thursday evening was a part of countrywide vitality issues that led to the biggest protests in Cuba in virtually 30 years, in July 2021. These had been adopted by smaller native protests in October 2022 and March 2024.

All are a part of a deep financial disaster that has prompted the exodus of greater than half one million Cubans to the U.S., with 1000’s extra heading to Europe.

The Cuban authorities and its allies blame the US’ 62-year-old commerce embargo on the island for its financial issues however White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated Monday that the Cuban authorities’s “long-term mismanagement of its economic policy and resources has certainly increased the hardship of people in Cuba.”

Energy stays comparatively low cost however more and more unavailable. The Cuban authorities on state tv Monday evening stated that it’s producing 1300 megawatts when peak demand can hit 3 gigawatts. Authorities stated by Monday afternoon that about 80% of Havana had intermittent energy however individuals remained fearful. Lessons remained closed by way of no less than Thursday.

Power Minister Vicente de la O Levy stated Oscar would carry “an additional inconvenience” to Cuba’s restoration since it will have an effect on key Cuban energy vegetation, corresponding to Felton within the metropolis of Holguín, and Renté in Santiago de Cuba.

A lot of Havana’s 2 million individuals resorted to cooking with improvised wooden stoves on the streets earlier than their meals went dangerous in fridges. Folks lined as much as purchase backed meals and few gasoline stations had been open.

The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday was the most recent downside with vitality distribution in a rustic the place electrical energy has been restricted and rotated amongst completely different areas at completely different occasions.

The blackout was thought-about to be Cuba’s worst since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Class 3 storm in 2022 and broken energy installations. It took days for the federal government to repair them.

Native authorities initially stated the outage stemmed from elevated demand from small- and medium-sized firms and residential air conditioners. Later, the blackout bought worse due to breakdowns in previous thermoelectric vegetation that haven’t been correctly maintained, and the dearth of gas to function some services.