HAVANA: Cuba had begun to restore power to the capital of Havana by early on Thursday, but large swaths of the Caribbean island nation still remained in the dark after the passage of Hurricane Ian, according to Reuters witnesses and official reports.
Much of the island's 11 million people was without power for the third day on Thursday after the brawling storm made landfall, knocking out high-tension wires, flattening homes and obliterating agricultural fields.
At least three people were killed in the storm in Cuba, according to state-run media.
Officials with the state power generator said they were making progress but still in the early stages of a complex recovery.
Pavel Angulo, a director of the National Electric Union, said on Wednesday that one of the most complex processes in the operation of an electrical system is restoring power from zero.
Cuba's grid relies on decrepit Soviet-era oil-fired generation plants that fail repeatedly, complicating recovery. The country has struggled to obtain fuel for the plants because of the Ukraine conflict and harsh sanctions from the United States.
Angulo said that workers had already fired up several of its generation plants and were trying to reincorporate them into the national grid.
As soon as the first plants are incorporated, the rest of the units will be incorporated in a much more accelerated way, Angulo said.
State-run media reported at mid-day on Thursday parts of Havana had been connected to the grid but that some circuits and lines were still damaged, stalling efforts in some areas.
During the densely populated Central Havana on Thursday, neighbours sat in doorways looking for fresh air after a stuffy night in cavernous apartment blocks.
Sultry temperatures and abundant mosquitoes - combined with the threat of mosquito-borne Dengue fever - had nerves on edge.
If this continued for a long time, it would have been very serious, said Carlos Herrera, a 49-year-old state worker. It looks as though they are finding solutions. Gas stations reopened and lines for fuel swelled to several hours long at the few available pumps, as light returned.