HAVANA — Many Cubans waited in anguish Sunday as electricity on much of the island had yet to be restored days after a blackout across the island.
Their concerns were also raised as Hurricane Oscar, a Category 1 storm, made landfall in the southeastern Bahamas and was heading toward their country.
Some neighborhoods had electricity restored in Cuba’s capital, where 2 million people live, but most of Havana remained dark. The impact of the blackout goes beyond lighting, as services like water supply also depend on electricity to run pumps.
People resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before the food went bad in refrigerators.
In tears, Ylenis de la Caridad Napoles, mother of a 7-year-old girl, says she is reaching a point of “desperation.”
The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday, which caused the collapse of the island’s whole system, was the latest in a series of problems with energy distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated to different regions at different times of the day.
People lined up for hours Sunday morning to buy bread in the few bakeries that could reopen.
Some Cubans like Rosa Rodríguez have been without electricity for four days.
“We have millions of problems, and none of them are solved,” Rodríguez said.
About half of Cuba was plunged into darkness Thursday evening, followed by the entire island Friday morning after one of the plants failed.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Cuba’s other power plants remained functional.
The blackout was considered to be Cuba’s worst in two years after Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged power installations. It took days for the government to fix them.
Over the weekend, Cubans grew more concerned after Oscar made landfall in the Bahamas and headed toward Cuba.
Forecasters said 5 to 10 inches of rain are expected across eastern Cuba through Tuesday, with some isolated locations getting up to 15 inches.