The recovery of electricity in the western provinces of Cuba already began this Sunday after a blackout on the island, but the Cuban Institute of Meteorology (Insmet) predicts that Hurricane Oscar will hit the northeastern region at the end of the day.
The general director of Electrical Energy of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lázaro Guerra, explained to state television that this morning the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, one of the main ones in the country, came into operation, and with it other smaller plants, for example . which is expected to increase electricity generation to restore energy in the western area.
The recovery of electricity began this Sunday, after a new failure in the national electrical system the day before, 48 hours after a total blackout.
Guerra said that the closure of the western subsystem occurred on Saturday night due to a breakdown in unit 1 of the plant in the municipality of Santa Cruz, in the province of Mayabeque.
Land and floating plants located in the provinces of Havana, Artemisa and Matanzas, all in the western part of the island, also participate in the process of restoring services.
Meanwhile, Ismet predicts that Hurricane Óscar will hit the northeastern region of the island, in the provinces of Guantánamo and Holguín, and Civil Defense has raised the alarm level for those regions to Cyclone Alert.
The arrival of Óscar, currently in category one (out of five) on the Saffir-Simpson scale, occurs just two days after Cuba suffered a total blackout from which it is now beginning to recover.
Insmet predicts that in the eastern region of Cuba the weather will begin to worsen starting this Sunday, “gradually increasing areas of showers, rains and thunderstorms, which can be strong and locally intense in some localities and in mountainous areas.”
It also forecasts “strong waves starting at noon” and “moderate coastal flooding in low areas of this coast,” including the wall of the city of Baracoa.
Oscar is the fifteenth tropical storm of the current Atlantic hurricane season, although the US National Hurricane Center has classified it as “minor.”
Source: Observadora
