That things are going from bad to worse in Cuba surprises absolutely no one. Just this week, the authorities restricted the amount of chicken that a citizen can purchase: 345 grams per person per month. That’s 0.7 pounds.
The economic chaos brought by communism in the ‘Socialist Paradise’ Island took a nasty turn these last few days when Cuba’s national electrical grid collapsed TWICE in 24 hours, and the process of restoring light to the country is not going very well.
And then, of course, comes Hurricane Oscar, expected to lambast the island in the following hours.
The first failure of the grid was midday on Friday (18) after the island’s largest power plant shut down. The grid collapsed again on the morning of Saturday (19).
Saturday evening, the authorities reported some progress restoring power but soon had to admit to another partial grid collapse. Socialism in action!
On Sunday, Cubans woke up without power, deepening a crisis that’s already extreme.
Reuters reported:
“The country’s top electricity official, Lazaro Guerra, confirmed a partial grid collapse in the western provinces of Cuba, which includes Havana, late on Saturday.
Technicians were working to resolve the issue, Guerra said, but did not provide a timeline for when power would be restored to the region.”
Two million people in Havana stood in line waiting for subsidized rations and worrying about what tomorrow may bring.
“State-run digital news outlet CubaDebate reported that the country’s largest power plant, Antonio Guiteras, was back online Sunday and would begin contributing to a restoration of service over the course of the day.
A third grid failure late on Saturday marked a major setback in the government’s efforts to quickly restore power to exhausted residents already suffering from severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.”
Hurricane Oscar is hitting northeastern Cuba with winds as high as 100 miles per hour (161 kph), further complicating the government’s plans to restore power.
“Reuters reporters witnessed two small protests overnight after a grid failure left Havana in the dark late Saturday, one on the outskirts of the capital in Marianao and the other in the more central Cuatro Caminos. Various videos of protests elsewhere in the capital began to crop up on social media late on Saturday, though Reuters was not able to verify their authenticity.”
Read more: Cuba’s Water Crisis: Over a Million Affected as Infrastructure Collapses
