Power has been restored to 94.53% of homes in Havana, staterun Uniao Eléctrica (UNE) reported on Saturday (1), after a second night of demonstrations in different parts of the city and a widespread internet outage in Cuba.
Amid protests over power shortages due to the blackout that occurred Tuesday (27th) after Hurricane Ian violently swept through western Cuba, the internet service was shut down around 20:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Friday (30th). interrupted ) across the island, according to NetBlocks, a website that monitors internet blocking around the world.
The capital’s electricity company, a subsidiary of the state and monopolist UNE, said on its Facebook account that in “Havana, with a total of 854,074 customers, 46,719 are affected [e] 807,360 have electricity service, 94.53% recovery”.
At least two youths were arrested when they protested on Línea, a central street, to demand the restoration of electricity.
In Pinar del Río province, which was hardest hit by the hurricane, power restoration accounts for just 3.12% and neighboring Artemisa for 38.11% of total users.
UNE has not provided the service recovery rate at the national level.
NetBlocks tweeted Friday night that “Realtime network data shows internet went down in Cuba for second straight night.”
According to the specialist website, “Readings show a breakdown in connectivity after 8 p.m. local time amid protests over poor conditions and power outages, exacerbated by Hurricane Ian.”
Internet service slowly returned on Saturday. The Cuban telecommunications company Etecsa did not confirm the total loss of service during the two nights.
“We want light”
Demonstrations continued on Saturday in at least one Havana neighborhood of 2.1 million people, unleashed on Thursday in different parts of the city to demand authorities restore power.
In Vedado, a populous neighborhood in central Havana, a few dozen people took to the streets this morning and banged on pots and pans to demand lights.
In Guanabacoa, a community east of Havana, another group of people have gone to block the streets with branches, trees felled by Ian and dumpsters, as has happened in other parts of the city, images online show.
On Friday evening, around a hundred people demonstrated in the municipality of Cerro, in a central area of the capital. Due to the heavy police presence, the weather heated up at times. “We want light! We want light!” they repeated. At another point nearby, it was mainly women with children who protested.
These women, like most protesters, are desperate because of the power outages, which are endangering the little food they stock in their freezers and which are also preventing water from being pumped from the wells that supply the capital.
Request to Washington
Police forces have been mobilized across the city, although they have generally allowed the protests to continue.
The top official in Havana, first secretary of the ruling PCC (Communist Party, single), Luis Antonio Torres, said on Friday that “protesting is a right” but took the view that, rather than helping, it was delaying reconstruction work .
This week’s protests in Havana are the largest since the historic demonstrations of 2021 that left one dead, dozens injured and around 500 protesters in prison some with more than 20 years in prison.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States government has received an unusual request for emergency assistance from the Cuban government following the devastating effects of Hurricane Ian.
A US State Department spokesman told AFP that Washington continued to communicate with the Cuban government about “the humanitarian and environmental consequences of Hurricane Ian and the August Matanzas fire, 100 km from Havana.
“We are exploring ways we can continue to support the Cuban people in accordance with US laws and regulations,” he said. Washington has maintained an embargo on Cuba for six decades, tightened since Donald Trump’s administration (20172021), making that flow difficult.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry tweeted a letter published by the New York Times, in which “Leaders and activists in the US make an urgent appeal and demand this [Joe] Biden temporarily lifts sanctions and allows Cuba to buy necessary supplies for postHuracanIan reconstruction.
USA: Hurricane Ian leaves trail of devastation, dead and missing