NOV 09, V7N- Power was mostly restored in Cuba on Friday, two days after Hurricane Rafael caused widespread outages, leaving the island's 10 million residents without electricity for the second time in a month. According to government officials, 13 of the 15 provinces had been reconnected to the national grid, with efforts still underway to restore power in two western provinces.

In Havana, the capital with a population of two million, around 17 percent of residents still lacked electricity after Rafael knocked down power lines. The hurricane, a Category 3 storm, caused significant damage, including ripping off roofs and tearing bleachers from a baseball stadium. Thankfully, no fatalities have been reported.

Rafael struck just two weeks after a power plant failure caused widespread blackouts. Ahead of the storm, nearly 250,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Cuba has faced long power cuts for months, a symptom of its ongoing economic crisis, which deepened after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

The UN General Assembly, in its most recent session, again called for the United States to lift its six-decade trade embargo on Cuba, which continues to strain the island's economy.

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