Hurricane Oscar leaves at least six dead in Cuba

Some Cubans living in areas where power has still not been restored have taken to the streets in a rare show of open dissent in a country where unauthorised protests are banned and can land protesters in jail.

Banging pots and pans, they chanted: “Turn on the lights.”

While power cuts are not unusual in Cuba, the failure of its biggest power plant last week triggered a chain reaction which saw the nation plunged into darkness.

President Díaz-Canel blamed the situation on a tightening of the decades-long US trade embargo.

He also said that the Cuban state would not rest until power was restored.

But on Monday night those living in neighbourhoods still without power said they were fed up.

“We have been without electricity since Friday,” one man told the Reuters news agency.

“My 85-year-old grandmother has been asking me for cold water since Friday,” he added.

A woman told Reuters she had been without power for four days.

“The food has spoiled, the children are struggling, we have no cold water, we have nothing,” she said.

Cubans have been struggling not just with the power cuts, but also with shortages of fuel and food as the Communist-run island experiences its worst economic crisis in three decades.