HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s capital came to a standstill Monday and the rest of the island braced for a fourth night. Massive blackout This created a few small protests and the stern government warned that any unrest would be punished.
Hurricane Oscar Passed the shore on Sunday before crossing the island East Coast At least six people died in a night when dozens of people protested in urban areas such as Santos Suárez and central Havana on Monday, with tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain.
Some smashed pots and pans in the streets, while others protested 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 Matt Quinones, a 55-year-old homemaker. She takes care of her mother-in-law who is in her 80s. “It hurts everyone, but the elderly most of all.”
The Cuban government has a low tolerance for civil disobedience and President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned on national television Sunday, “We are not going to allow any destruction, or anyone to disturb the peace of the people.”
A nationwide blackout followed Thursday night’s massive blackout, leading to the largest protests in Cuba in July 2021 in nearly 30 years.
It’s all part of it Deep economic crisis This prompted the exodus of more than half a million Cubans to the United States, and thousands more to Europe.
A resident looks at his cellphone on the street during a blackout following a major power plant outage in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinoza)
The Cuban government and its allies blame the United States’ 62-year-old trade embargo for its economic woes, but White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the Cuban government’s “chronic mismanagement of its economic policy and resources has certainly increased the suffering of the people in Cuba.”
Electricity is relatively cheap but increasingly unavailable. The Cuban government said it would generate 700 megawatts, with peak demand reaching 3 gigawatts. As of Monday afternoon, officials said 80 percent of Havana had uninterrupted power, but residents remained skeptical.
“We have food in the fridge and we’re scared,” said small business owner Juan Estrada, 53, whose central Havana business has been without steady power since Friday morning.
Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told a news conference that he hoped reliable power would be restored by Monday or Tuesday morning, but that classes would remain closed until at least Thursday.
He said Oscar, which made landfall on the East Coast on Sunday evening, would bring “additional difficulty” to Cuba’s recovery because it would hit “a region of strong (electricity) production.” Major Cuban power plants such as Felton in Holguin and Rende in Santiago de Cuba are located in the region.
Oscar later weakened to a tropical storm but its effects were forecast to linger on the island until Monday.
Many of Havana’s 2 million people resorted to cooking on the streets with improvised wood stoves before food went bad in refrigerators.
People lined up Monday to buy subsidized food and some gas stations were open.
The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday is the latest problem in the country’s power supply, where electricity is cut off and rotates at different times in different regions. The status of Cuba’s other power plants is unclear.
People queued for hours on Sunday to buy bread at 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 have been solved,” Rodriguez said. “We have to come get the bread because the local bakery is closed and they bring it from somewhere else.”
The blackout was considered Cuba’s worst since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged electrical installations. It took the government several days to fix them.
The Cuban government announced emergency measures to reduce electricity demand, including suspending school and university classes, closing some state-owned workplaces and canceling essential services.
Local officials said the outage was due to increased demand for small and medium enterprises and residential air conditioners. Later, power outages worsened as old thermoelectric plants, which were not properly maintained, broke down and lacked fuel to run some facilities.
Cuba’s energy minister said on Saturday that the country’s grid would be better if there were not two more partial blackouts as authorities tried to reconnect. De La O’Levy also said that countries including Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia have offered to help.
Residents walk down a street during a blackout following the failure of a major power plant in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinoza)
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Associated Press writer Josh Bogue in Washington contributed to this report.
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