Array
Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Sunday evening in Cuba, where residents were preparing for more chaos and misery as the country grapples with a nearly nationwide power outage that is in its third day.
The arrival of Oscar, after the Friday collapse of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the whole national grid, piles pressure on a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.
Cuba’s government said power would be reinstated for the majority of the country by Monday evening.
The Category 1 storm made landfall in eastern Cuba at 5:50 pm local time (2150 GMT) on Sunday, the US National Hurricane Center said.
Oscar was packing maximum sustained winds nearing 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour, the NHC said, and the storm was moving westward at seven miles per hour.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Saturday that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”
Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters Sunday that electricity would be restored for most Cubans by Monday night, adding that “the last customer may receive service by Tuesday.”
The power grid failed in a chain reaction Friday due to the unexpected shutdown of the biggest of the island’s eight decrepit coal-fired power plants, according to the head of electricity supply at the energy ministry, Lazaro Guerra.
