Hurricane Oscar makes landfall in Cuba amid crippling power outage | Energy News [Video]

Hurricane Oscar has made landfall on the northeastern coast of Cuba as the island nation struggles to restore power following a massive nationwide blackout.

In its latest update, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the United States said the storm made landfall on Sunday evening near the city of Baracoa, in the province of Guantanamo, with maximum sustained winds of about 130km/h (80mph).

The Cuban meteorological survey earlier had warned of “an extremely dangerous situation” in the east of the country, which has largely been without electricity or communication ahead of Oscar’s arrival.

The storm hit just days after the failure of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the national grid, piling more pressure on a nation already battling shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.

The grid collapsed again on Sunday – the fourth such failure in 48 hours – after authorities had said they were making headway in restoring power.

On Saturday, …