Many Cubans waited in anguish and some took to the streets in protest as widespread blackouts stretched into their third day Sunday. Their concerns were heightened as Hurricane Oscar hit Cuba's eastern coast with winds and heavy rain. In Santo Suárez, part of a populous neighborhood in southwestern Havana, people went into the streets banging pots and pans in protest Sunday night. "We haven't had electricity for three nights, and our food is rotting. Four days without electricity is an abuse to the children," resident Mary Karla, a mother of three children, told the AP. The protesters, who also say they have no water, blocked the street with garbage.
Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said in a news conference he hopes the electricity grid will be restored on Monday or Tuesday morning. But he said that Oscar, which made landfall on the eastern coast Sunday evening, will bring "an additional inconvenience" to Cuba's recovery since it will touch a "region of strong (electricity) generation." Key Cuban power plants, such as Felton in the city of Holguín, and Renté in Santiago de Cuba, are located in the area. Oscar later weakened to a tropical storm, but its effects were forecast to linger in the island through Monday.
Some neighborhoods had electricity restored in Cuba's capital, where 2 million people live, but most of Havana remained dark. The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday, which caused the collapse of the island's whole system, was just 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. The status of Cuba's other power plants was unclear. Per CNN, the country's power grid collapsed for the fourth time since Friday on Sunday afternoon.
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