“The Cuban government and Communist party are facing the worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both economically and politically,” said Bill LeoGrande, a Cuba specialist at American University in Washington. “The government is broke, it doesn’t have the money to import enough food or fuel.”

Cuba's power grid has ground to a halt for a second time in as many days, leaving 10 million on the island without power and the Caribbean island in a growing sense of crisis.

The repeated failure of the power grid and a hurricane that has swamped the island’s eastern end has many Cubans fed up, posing a challenge to the Communist government.

Cuba's power grid collapsed on Sunday evening for the fourth time in two days, plunging much of the island nation into darkness as Hurricane Oscar made landfall in eastern Cuba as a Category 1 storm.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel urged calm and warned against vandalism from citizens angry at the loss of power over three days so far.

Cuba's electrical grid collapsed again on Sunday, the fourth such failure in 48 hours, with a hurricane making landfall to compound the island's misery and threaten further havoc on its decrepit infrastructure.