The island's electricity plants had already suffered a series of outages, even before forecasters warned that a 'life-threatening' storm was about to strike.
Cuba has been plunged into darkness after Hurricane Rafael slammed into the island as a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 115mph . The country's electricity operator UNE said high winds had caused the electricity grid to collapse. State-run TV reported the entire population of 10 million people was without power - part of a series of blackouts which have plagued the Caribbean island in recent weeks.
Last month Cuba suffered a total collapse of its national electric grid, leaving an estimated 10 million people without power for several days. That coincided with Hurricane Oscar making landfall around the same time. Cuba's oil-fired power plants have struggled to secure vital oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico. Rafael brushed past the Cayman Islands as a Category 1 hurricane before increasing to a much more powerful Category 3 storm off the southwest of Cuba.
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