Hurricane Oscar barrels towards Cuba amid crippling power outage

The storm is forecast to reach eastern Cuba on Sunday, bringing heavy rains, while millions remain without electricity.

Hurricane Oscar is bearing down on Cuba as the island nation struggles to restore power following days of a massive nationwide blackout.

The expected arrival of the storm on Sunday, just days after the failure of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the national grid, piles more pressure on a country already battling inflation as well as shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Saturday in a post on social media that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar”.

Packing winds of 140km/h (85mph), Oscar was forecast to reach eastern Cuba on Sunday, where heavy rains are expected, according to the National Hurricane Center of the United States.

The Cuban presidency said in another social media post that progress had been made in restoring power, with 16 percent of consumers receiving electricity and about 500 megawatts being generated, just a fraction of the country’s 3,300MW demand.