Extract from ABC News
The colourful charm of Cuba's capital, Havana, has long made it a magnet for tourists from abroad.
That's why Betty* decided to start a tour guide business after moving there a couple of years ago.
Betty had been forced to leave her home city, further inland, because power blackouts had become crippling. Sometimes, the electricity was out for 16 hours a day.
Her tourism business became the main source of income for her family.
But now, as the US blocks oil shipments to Cuba and power constantly goes out across the country, the tourism industry is "all but dead", she says.
"You can no longer find streets packed with travellers, music and dance," Betty told the ABC.
"Only Cuban nationals, still attempting to take some bread home."
Some homes in Cuba have been without a water supply for months. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Poor sanitation is contributing to the spread of disease. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Cuba has been subject to punishing American sanctions since 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro and his forces took power and seized foreign assets.
In the months leading up to this week's arrest warrant for Fidel Castro's brother, former president Raúl Castro, the Trump administration intensified the pressure campaign.
The US has maintained an effective blockade of energy to Cuba since January, when it threatened tariffs on any country that provided oil.
It had already stopped Venezuelan oil exports after toppling that country's leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January.
Mexico had been a major supplier. By early February, it had halted its shipments.
One Russian oil tanker was allowed through the US blockade at the end of March, easing the crisis for about a month.
Those supplies are now exhausted.
Russia has sent another tanker, but it's not clear if it will be allowed to dock.
Havana bears the signs of decades of neglect. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Prices have rocketed, and many businesses have closed. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
For now, Betty travels around Havana to friends' homes who might have power, so she can use the internet to try to reach potential foreign visitors.
"Old Havana, once the main hub of visitors, is but a ghost town," she said
"Prices have skyrocketed for the only still-standing businesses to stay afloat."
'One of the dirtiest cities in Latin America'
Betty is plagued by another worry: a toothache that she says hospitals will be unable to address due to a lack of power and supplies.
She is searching for treatment options on the black market, as Cuba's healthcare system plunges deeper into crisis.
UN officials estimate there are 100,000 patients, including 11,000 children, waiting for surgeries delayed by power and supply shortages.
Mosquito-borne and water-borne diseases are spreading. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
There are few cars on the road, and getting around is becoming more difficult. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Sewage infrastructure is breaking down, causing disease. Mosquitoes are spreading illness, too.
Francisco, who lives just east of Havana in an area called Alamar, said both he and his wife had been infected with the debilitating mosquito-borne chikungunya virus. Both had also had hepatitis A.
"I dare say that Havana has become one of the dirtiest cities in Latin America," Francisco said.
"Another very serious problem is garbage collection.
"Without fuel, the garbage isn't being collected. More than a month goes by without collection, and the townspeople, in protest, start burning it."
Where he lives, the electricity supply has dwindled to just six hours a day, three in the morning and three at night.
Cuba has been under a US embargo since 1960. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Many Cubans are now wondering what the US will do next. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Bracing for a summer of blackouts
Summer is now setting in in tropical Cuba.
The heat means food wastes in refrigerators with no power supply.
Lucia, who lives in a neighbourhood in central Havana, says it is getting harder for people to sleep at night.
"Sometimes when it's like 20 hours of blackouts, it's all night long," she said.
"There are mosquitoes in the night. I think that's why people are so stressed, because they're not able to sleep.
"If you go walking by the street, you can hear people talking, and everybody's talking about the same subject … how hard it is, how many hours without electricity."
Cuba experiences intense summers. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Across the country, power supplies have become intermittent and unreliable. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Before the US blockade, she said, the power crisis was more manageable.
"There were already a lot of blackouts, but it was more organised, if I can say.
"Every neighbourhood [block] had a schedule, so you know when you were going to have light, like, four hours a day, four hours yes, four hours no."
The US says Cuba is a national security threat.
The Trump order that threatened tariffs on its oil suppliers pointed to the regime's collaboration with Chinese and Russian intelligence, among others.
The Trump administration ultimately wants regime change.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said some sort of diplomatic solution was "our preference", but "the likelihood of that happening, given who we're dealing with, is not high".
In a Spanish-language video message addressing Cubans this week, he said: "The real reason you don't have electricity, fuel or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people."
Without oil, few cars are on the road and public transport has essentially stopped working. A new wave of tuktuk drivers is replacing it.
Tuktuks are replacing other forms of transport. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Petrol supplies have been cut off. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
But Lucia says the hardest part of the crisis is the lack of water. Her building's water supply has been cut off for six months.
She walks half a block to fill a bucket for cooking and showering, lugging the water up several floors to her apartment. The supplies run out quickly, so people have to get up early or miss out.
"You can live without electricity," Lucia said, "but living without water is just not possible."
Protesters risk brutal punishment
Sporadic and small protests broke out last week as the island's energy reserves ran out.
It was a sign of just how desperate people had become, says Havana-born Sebastian Arcos, who is now the interim director of the Institute for Cuban Studies at Florida International University (FIU).
"This is a police state, a totalitarian society. Political opposition, particularly open political opposition, is severely punished," he said.
Many Cubans say political change is urgent. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Cubans are split on the prospect of US intervention, but many believe sanctions should continue. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Particularly notable were the protests in Havana, where Mr Arcos says the regime conducts the most surveillance.
"That unwritten contract between a totalitarian society and the population where totalitarians say, 'We're going to take away your freedoms but at least we're going to give you the basic standards of living,' in Cuba, it's gone, it's disappeared," he says.
"[The regime] has shown over the last 30 years that they are willing to sacrifice the welfare of the Cuban population in order to remain in power."
Cubans have become "cannon fodder" in a conflict between two governments, one expert says. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
UN officials believe 100,000 people are waiting for surgeries that have been postponed. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
The restrictions on free speech mean public opinion is difficult to accurately measure.
In one recent online survey, which attracted 42,000 voluntary responses, 94 per cent of respondents living in Cuba said political change was urgent.
Fifty-six per cent expressed support for US military intervention, and more than three-quarters said the US embargo should stay in place, either in whole or in part.
Support for the US embargo and military intervention was even stronger among the surveyed diaspora.
'Stuck between two psychopaths'
Michael Bustamante, a Cuba expert at Florida University, says the Cuban people have become "cannon fodder" in a conflict between two governments that has been running for some 70 years.
"It's absolutely heartbreaking what they're enduring in this moment," he said.
"I can't imagine having to wake up at three in the morning because the lights are going to come on for an hour, that's the hour I'm going to have to cook what little food hasn't already gone rotten in my refrigerator.
"It's the Cuban people that are bearing the brunt of the effects both of incredible economic coercion from the United States, but also years and years of a lack of internal reform."
Daily life continues amid the uncertainty. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Many Cubans have grown up under totalitarian rule. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Lucia describes the situation as "like being stuck between two psychopaths".
"I feel very angry to both sides, to be honest."
She thinks the US hopes of a civil uprising are unrealistic.
"In other countries, for much less than what's happening here, people go out to the streets and protest," she said.
"Here I think people are very scared, and I think they just don't have faith in the possibility of making something change that way."
But she also wants the US to stay out.
"I don't really want the US to come here. I don't think they really care about democracy or our liberty or something. I think they have other interests.
"If somebody cared about democracy or human rights or whatever, they would have already done something."
* Names have been changed.
About 10 million people live in Cuba. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
Cubans say many people in the country are living in fear. (ABC News: Harvey Lujes)
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