HAVANA: Cuban authorities struggled to return power to the island on Thursday morning after Hurricane Rafael knocked out the country`s electrical grid, leaving 10 million people in the dark.
The grid collapsed on Wednesday afternoon as Rafael tore across Cuba with top winds of 115 mph (185 kph), damaging homes, uprooting trees and toppling telephone poles.
The hurricane had moved 155 miles (250 km) north and west of Havana by Thursday morning, spinning off into the Gulf of Mexico where it no longer posed an immediate threat to land, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Rafael was the latest blow to the communist-run country's already precarious electrical grid, which just two weeks ago collapsed multiple times, leaving many in the country without power for days.
The Energy and Mines Ministry said it had already begun work to reconnect the national grid late on Wednesday but warned that the process would be slower in western parts of the island, which were hardest hit by the storm.
Emergency workers had returned power to some circuits, state-run media said, though Havana remained largely without power at daybreak on Thursday.
Rafael, the second hurricane to hit the island in less than a month after Oscar ravaged eastern Cuba in October, added to existing problems with power.
The country's decrepit oil-fired generation plants have struggled to keep the lights on for decades, but this year the system collapsed into crisis as oil imports dropped off from allied countries - Venezuela, Russia and Mexico. Rolling blackouts lasting hours have become the norm across much of Cuba.
Heavy rain was still falling in the capital, Havana, early on Thursday, as surf pounded the waterfront Malecon boulevard and many low-lying areas and roads remained flooded. Downed tree limbs, trash and debris blocked many roadways, complicating travel and recovery efforts.
Havana's airport was scheduled to remain closed through at least Thursday at mid-day, officials said.
The storm tore across Artemisa province, which is an important farming region in a country already suffering from severe food shortages. Heavy winds and rain prompted authorities to protectively harvest ripening fruits and vegetables rather than take a total loss.
State-run media showed images of downed power lines, metal roofs strewn across city streets and shattered windows. Flooding was widespread.
Rafael grazed the Cayman Islands as a Category 1 cyclone on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale before increasing strength in less than 24 hours to the much more powerful Category 3 that made landfall on Cuba's southwestern shore. — REUTERS