The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) revealed on Saturday that Cuba has issued a hurricane warning for its northern coast ahead of Hurricane Oscar, which is expected to make landfall on Sunday evening.

The warning was issued specifically for the provinces of Holguin and Guantanamo, according to the latest NHC advisory.

Meanwhile, according to an earlier advisory, the Bahamas government also issued a similar alert as Hurricane Oscar formed east of the Turks and Caicos Islands on Saturday.

A hurricane warning was also in effect for the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The NHC warned that heavy rains associated with Oscar could lead to flash flooding and possible landslides, particularly in eastern Cuba and the Sierra Maestra mountain range.

Hurricane Oscar is also expected to produce dangerous storm surge over parts of the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas Saturday evening, and along the northern coast of Cuba later Sunday, according to the NHC.

Cuba faces prolonged power outage

The hurricane warning for Cuba on Saturday came as the country’s government announced it had restored electricity to nearly a fifth of the island’s population after the national grid collapsed twice in 24 hours, plunging millions of people into darkness.

The unprecedented nationwide power outage is the latest blow to the country of 10 million people, which is already suffering dramatic shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

However, the capital Havana was still largely in the dark on Saturday evening.

Strong winds and rain began buffeting much of the Caribbean island before Hurricane Oscar arrived, ending a series of dramatic events in Cuba over several days that increased tensions among the inhabitants of the island already exhausted.

Cuba’s power grid failed around midday Friday after one of the island’s largest power plants shut down. The network collapsed again on Saturday morning, Cuban media reported.

The government has blamed weeks of worsening power outages – up to 10 to 20 hours a day – on deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand.

High winds that began with Hurricane Milton last week also complicated Cuba’s ability to ship scarce fuel from offshore boats to power its power plants, officials said.

Cuba also blames the U.S. trade embargo, as well as sanctions instituted by then-President Donald Trump, for continued difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate and maintain its oil-fired power plants.