HAVANA, OCT 20 – A typhoon is approaching Cuba today as the country’s authorities work to restore electricity after a massive outage across the country.
The expected arrival of Hurricane Oscar, just days after the failure of Cuba’s largest power plant paralyzed the country’s electricity grid, added pressure to a country already facing soaring inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said yesterday in a post on social media that authorities in the east of the island “are working hard to protect people and economic resources, given the impending arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”
With wind speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour, Hurricane Oscar is forecast to reach eastern Cuba today, where heavy rain is expected, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
The Cuban president said in another post on social media that progress had been made in restoring electricity, with 16 percent of consumers receiving electricity and around 500 megawatts being generated.
That amount was a fraction of the country’s 3,300 megawatt national demand on Thursday, a day before the electricity grid collapsed and the government declared an energy emergency following weeks of outages.
The power grid was disrupted in a chain reaction on Friday due to the sudden shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the largest of the island’s eight aging coal-fired power plants, according to the head of electricity supply at the energy ministry, Lazaro Guerra. – AFP
