Hurricane Oscar heads for Cuba after making landfall in Bahamas

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(Reuters) -Hurricane Oscar is expected to reach Guantanamo or Holguin in Cuba later on Sunday as the island country struggles to restore power after its worst blackout in years, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Oscar is currently located about 115 miles (185.07 km) east-northeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 km/h), the Miami-based forecaster said.

Cuba’s government on Saturday restored power to nearly one-fifth of the island’s 10 million people after the national grid collapsed twice in 24 hours.

Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Great Inagua island in the Bahamas earlier in the day.

NHC expects Oscar to weaken after making landfall on the northeastern coast of Cuba, but it could still be a tropical storm when it moves north of Cuba late Monday and across the central Bahamas on Tuesday.

According to the NHC, rainfall amounts of 5 inches to 10 inches (13-25 cm) with isolated amounts of 15 inches are expected across eastern Cuba through Tuesday.

The government of the Bahamas has discontinued its tropical storm warning for the Turks and Caicos Islands, NHC said.

Hurricane warnings for the Southeastern Bahamas, the north coast of the Cuban provinces of Holguin, Guantanamo and Las Tunas are still in place, it added.

(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Christina Fincher and Chizu Nomiyama)