Hurricane Oscar: The hurricane makes landfall in Cuba with winds of 130 kilometers per hour amid an electrical crisis that knocked out power to the island
Image source, Noah
- author, Drafting
- Author title, BBC World News
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Hurricane Oscar made landfall in Cuba on Sunday afternoon before losing strength and becoming a tropical storm as it moved east of the island, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported.
The meteorological phenomenon reached the island with maximum sustained wind speed 130 kilometers per hourBut later, about 65 kilometers east of Guantanamo, near the city of Baracoa (southeast of the country), the storm weakened and the maximum wind speed reached 110 kilometers per hour.
“We have examined measures to confront the passage of Hurricane Oscar in the east of the country. Precise instructions have been issued to ensure the care of our people. Support to the provinces has been strengthened and brigades are prepared to recover in the shortest possible time.” The Cuban president wrote on Sunday, Miguel Diaz-CanelOn the social networking site X.
The island has a long history of dealing with hurricanes, with effective civil defense and an extensive network of shelters.
The NHC expects Hurricane Oscar on Monday to change course and move northeast, leaving the island territories overnight or early Tuesday.
“Through midweek, heavy rains from Oscar will cause significant and potentially life-threatening flash flooding and landslides across parts of eastern Cuba, especially in the Sierra Maestra. In addition, there may be localized flash flooding across the southeastern Bahamas.” . NHC prediction.
Hurricane without electricity
access Hurricane Oscar It occurs in the middle of A Strong electrical crisis On the island, which left most of its residents without electricity due to successive malfunctions in the system over the past three days.
The Cuban government said electrical service would return mostly to normal Monday evening, although there will be users who will not get electricity until Tuesday.
The island's main power station broke down on Friday, cutting off power to 10 million people, almost the entire population of Cuba.
Image source, Getty Images
Supplies were partially restored on Saturday, before collapsing again overnight.
Diaz-Canel said on Sunday that they would not tolerate “vandalism” on the electrical grid.
He said, according to excerpts from a document: “We will not accept and will not allow anyone to act in a way that causes sabotage, let alone changing the tranquility of the citizen in our people. This is the conviction and principle of our revolution.” Published video statement of the Presidency of Cuba in X.
The communist president recently blamed the US embargoFor decades, it has been preventing much-needed supplies and spare parts from reaching Cuba.
“Sometimes people think no, that this is inefficiency, that they don't want (reform), that they want to inconvenience people. Today we have two problems: One, we don't have the fuel we need.” Another is that we have not been able to make repairs,” Diaz-Canel said on Friday.
“It all goes through currencies. A currency we don't have because of financial oppression, and fuel we don't have because of energy oppression. “It is a siege, an intense siege in these times.”
“There are people here who do not want people to talk about the siege,” he said.
Díaz-Canel added that even after the electrical system is repaired these days, the country will continue to be in a state of energy emergency.
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