Cuba Keeps Schools Closed Amid Crisis

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba announced schools will remain closed and non-essential workers will stay home until Sunday, as the country grapples with the aftermath of last Friday's power grid collapse and Hurricane Oscar this week.

The far eastern province of Guantanamo suffered significantly from Hurricane Oscar, which made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, bringing over 15 inches of rain to some areas. The storm was later downgraded to a tropical storm before heading north towards the Bahamas.

The hurricane, combined with an unprecedented electrical grid collapse, has worsened the ongoing issues of food, fuel, and medicine shortages in the country.

In response, scattered protests erupted across Havana and the nation. Officials reported that seven individuals had died due to the storm's impact. Nearly 500 individuals were rescued from remote areas cut off by floodwaters or landslides, with around 4,000 people currently in shelters.

Flash floods obliterated homes, roads, agricultural lands, and already dilapidated infrastructure, particularly in major coffee-producing regions. Wind and rain had damaged at least 2,280 homes, according to state media.

Rural communication systems remained unreliable, and most of the eastern province continued to experience power outages as emergency teams worked to clear fallen power lines.

The United Nations stated its support for Cuba’s recovery efforts following Hurricane Oscar. The storm has further complicated the restoration of Cuba’s fragile electrical grid—while service was stabilized on Tuesday, officials warned that outages would persist as experienced prior to the grid failure.

Cuba's aging power plants have faced a full crisis this year, largely due to declining oil imports from Venezuela, Russia, and Mexico, which culminated in last Friday's grid collapse. A generation deficit of about one-third of total demand was projected for Wednesday, leaving many residents still without power.