Electricity finally begins to return in Cuba after multi-day power blackout 

Cuban authorities say at least six people have been killed after Hurricane Oscar made landfall over the weekend, with the government still working to re-establish power after days of blackouts.

In a social media post on Monday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said preliminary data showed at least six deaths resulting from the storm, which brought strong winds and rain to the eastern end of the island when it made landfall on Sunday. He said rescue efforts continue in some parts of the island.

“The last thing we want is that, as a consequence of a fallen power line, we suffer another collapse of the system,” said Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy, addressing efforts to restore power.

Electricity is slowly returning to Havana, Cuba’s capital, days after a nationwide blackout plunged the country of 10 million into total darkness on Friday, causing the government to close all non-essential workplaces and cancel school classes until Thursday.

According to Cuban officials, power was brought back to almost 90 percent of Havana as of Monday. Other areas remain without power, even after the island’s largest power plant was back online and helped boost generation.

Many Cubans were still holding their breath after earlier announcements that the crisis was over were quickly dashed by renewed power cuts, leaving only hospitals and essential services operational.

“We should not expect that when the system comes back online the blackouts will end,” electricity official Lazaro Guerra said on Monday, cautioning against excessive optimism.

“It’s back!!” Giovanny Fardales, a relieved 51-year-old unemployed translator, wrote in a text message to Al Jazeera on Monday, accompanied by a photo of an illuminated electric lamp on a table by his telephone.

“How long before they cut it again? That’s the question. Not being negative, just realistic,” he added.

Adding to concerns, Hurricane Oscar made landfall in eastern Cuba late Sunday afternoon as a Category 1 storm. A relatively small storm, it quickly weakened as it moved inland, the United States National Hurricane Center said, causing waves up to 4 metres (13 feet) along the eastern coast.

Roofs and the walls of houses were damaged, and electricity poles and trees were brought down, state television reported. Power was knocked out in the city of Holguin, the fourth largest city in Cuba with more than 300,000 residents.

De la O Levy said in a news conference he hoped the electricity grid would be restored by the end of Monday or early Tuesday.

The minister also said Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia, among other nations, had offered to help, though he gave no details.

Over the weekend, Havana was blacked out at night, with streets largely deserted and only a handful of bars and homes running on small fuel-fired generators.

A heavy police presence was visible at points throughout the city.

Cubans at night on a street during a nationwide blackout caused by a grid failure in Havana on October 18, 2024 [Adalberto Roque/AFP]

Protests

A more prolonged outage stirred fears of instability in a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.

On Sunday evening, President Diaz-Canel appeared on national television, dressed in military attire, warning Cubans to air their grievances with civility and not cause disturbances.

“We are not going to accept nor allow anyone to act with vandalism and much less to alter the tranquillity of our people,” said Diaz-Canel, who is rarely seen in uniform.

In July 2021, blackouts sparked an outburst of unprecedented public anger, with thousands of Cubans taking to the street and chanting slogans, including “Freedom!” and “We are hungry”.

A few Cubans took to the streets in protest on Sunday as food supplies dwindled and residents took to cooking with wood, trying to consume perishable meats and other goods before they spoiled.

In Santo Suarez, part of a populous neighbourhood in southwestern Havana, people went into the streets banging pots and pans in protest.

Housewife Anabel Gonzalez, a resident of Old Havana, told the Reuters news agency she was growing desperate after three days without power.

“My cell phone is dead and look at my refrigerator. The little that I had has all gone to waste,” she said, pointing to bare shelves in her two-room home.

People watch the Turkey-flagged power ship in Havana Bay, Cuba, November 15, 2022 [Ismael Francisco/AP]

Ageing power plants

Cuba’s power grid is heavily dependent on imported fuel for the island’s eight run-down oil-fired power plants, one of which broke down on Friday, triggering the blackout, according to the head of electricity supply at the Ministry of Energy, Lazaro Guerra.

Power was briefly restored on Sunday to a few hundred thousand inhabitants before the grid failed again, according to the national electric utility.

To bolster its grid, in recent years, Cuba has leased half a dozen floating “power ships” from a Turkish company, adding hundreds of smaller, container-sized diesel generators for towns in the countryside.

Diaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s struggles to acquire fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening of the six-decade-long US trade embargo during Donald Trump’s presidency.

But the island is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main benefactor and Cold War ally, in the early 1990s.

“Cubans are tired of so much … There’s no life here, [people] can’t take it any more,” Serguei Castillo, a 68-year-old bricklayer, told the AFP news agency.