Cubans struggle as power not fully restored days after island-wide blackout
Many Cubans are waiting in anguish as electricity on much of the island has yet to be totally restored days after a blackout
HAVANA — Many Cubans waited in anguish Sunday as electricity on much of the island had yet to be restored days after an island-wide blackout. Their concerns were also raised as Hurricane Oscar made landfall in the southeastern Bahamas and was heading toward their country.
Some neighborhoods had electricity restored in Cuba’s capital, where 2 million people live, but most of Havana remained dark. The impact of the blackout goes beyond lighting, as services like water supply also depend on electricity to run pumps.
People resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before the food went bad in refrigerators.
In tears, Ylenis de la Caridad Napoles, mother of a 7-year-old girl, says she is reaching a point of “desperation.”
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.
People lined up for hours on Sunday morning to buy bread in the few bakeries that could reopen.
Some Cubans like Rosa Rodríguez have been without electricity for four days.
“We have millions of problems, and none of them are solved,” said Rodríguez. “We must come to get bread, because the local bakery is closed, and they bring it from somewhere else.”
Cuba's energy minister Vicente de la O Levy was expected to speak at a press conference on Sunday.
About half of Cuba was plunged into darkness on Thursday evening, followed by the entire island on Friday morning after one of
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