Cuba’s president said officials had begun restoring power after a nationwide blackout caused by Hurricane Rafael on Wednesday.
Hurricane Rafael brought winds of up to 185 km/h (115 mph), causing the country’s power system to shut down for the second time in just a few weeks.
At least 70,000 people were evacuated from their homes before the storm made landfall on Wednesday, and warnings were issued for storm surge, flash floods and mudslides.
No deaths have been reported yet.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the provinces of Artemiza and Mayabeca, as well as the capital Havana, were hard hit.
“Every step from now on is about recovery. We will do this together,” he added.
The hurricane brought widespread flooding and property damage to the western parts of the country. Most of the country’s 10 million people remain without electricity.
In Havana, residents used shovels, brooms and buckets to clear away trash, dirt and tree limbs Thursday as they assessed the damage.
Downed power poles lined the highway from the west of the capital to Artemisa, and towns along the way were strewn with branches and debris from damaged homes.
One Artemisa resident said people had to “improvise” to cope with the outage.
“If you don’t have natural gas, you have to improvise with coal,” Elias Pérez said.
“Yesterday my wife and I lived on coal. It’s a mess, but we have to keep going.”
Last month, problems with Cuba’s old energy infrastructure caused a blackout that left millions without power for four days.
The outage also coincided with Hurricane Oscar, a less powerful Category 1 storm that left a trail of destruction along the island’s northeast coast.
“We know how to survive, you know, we’re always in the dark,” said Natalia Martinez, also from Artemisa.
