Millions in Cuba begin third day without power as Hurricane Oscar approaches

(CNN)- Millions of Cubans remained without power for the third consecutive day Sunday after new efforts to restore power failed overnight.

Cuba’s electrical union said power was restored to about 16% of the country after the aging power grid was overloaded again late Saturday. Officials did not say when the service would be restored.

This is the third complete collapse of Cuba’s electrical grid since Friday, and has disrupted access to electricity for most of the country’s 10 million residents.

Recovery efforts will be further complicated by Hurricane Oscar’s arrival in eastern Cuba, which is expected to bring strong winds and waves, according to meteorologists.

According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) update at 5 a.m. ET this Sunday, Hurricane Oscar made its first landfall on Inagua Island in the Bahamas, with estimated maximum sustained winds of 130 km/h.

It is expected to reach the northeastern coast of Cuba as a storm this afternoon. “Weakening is expected after landfall, but Oscar may still be a tropical storm as it moves north of Cuba late Monday and toward the central Bahamas on Tuesday,” the NHC said.

The first blackout in Cuba occurred on Friday, when one of the country’s main power plants stopped working, according to the Energy Ministry.

The country suffered a second national blackout on Saturday morning, just hours after officials said supplies were gradually being restored.

The blackout threatens to plunge the communist nation into deep crisis. The supply of water and keeping food fresh both depend on the reliability of the power supply.

Some people started filling out WhatsApp chats with updates about which areas had power, while others arranged to stock medicines in the refrigerators of people who had power for short periods of time, or to keep generators handy. Were lucky enough to.

In Havana, residents waited for hours to buy some loaves of bread at the handful of shops selling bread in the capital. When the bread ran out, many people argued angrily that they had broken the line.

Many wondered where Cuba’s traditional allies, such as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico, were. By now, they were supplying the island with much-needed barrels of oil to keep the lights on.

Meanwhile, tourists were still seen roaming Havana’s boulevards in classic 1950s cars, although generators at many hotels had run out of fuel.

One foreign visitor told CNN that Havana’s José Martí International Airport was operating in the dark with only emergency power, adding that printers for issuing tickets were not working and there was no air conditioning in the terminal.

Reuters journalists witnessed two small protests throughout Sunday night, while videos of protests also emerged elsewhere in the capital.

Cuban officials have blamed the energy crisis on a confluence of events, ranging from increased U.S. economic sanctions to disruptions caused by recent hurricanes and the poor condition of the island’s infrastructure.

In a televised speech on Thursday that was delayed due to technical difficulties, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said most of the country’s limited output was being halted to prevent people from being left without power altogether. .

“We are stalling economic activities to generate (energy) for the population,” he said.

The country’s health minister, Jose Angel Portal Miranda, said Friday that the country’s health facilities were running on generators and health workers were continuing to provide vital services.

CNN’s Mia Alberti and Jean Norman and CNN en Español’s Veronica Calderón and Gerardo Lemos contributed to this report.