Nearly three-quarters of Cuba’s hotels have closed, leaving the island’s tourism sector in a state of “near-total paralysis” because of US sanctions and fuel shortages, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said on Wednesday.

Presenting the scale of the tourism crisis for the first time since it began, Marrero said seven international hotel chains that had managed around half of the country’s hotel rooms had left the island.

Tourism was Cuba’s second-largest source of foreign currency revenue and employed more than 300,000 people before the crisis intensified this year. The streets of Old Havana, once crowded with visitors seeking sunshine and salsa music, are now largely quiet.

Marrero said approximately 73% of the country’s hotels had closed and that nearly 25,000 workers were now “in a difficult situation.”

After Havana announced a shortage of aviation fuel in February, Canadian, Russian and European airlines suspended their flights to the island.

The crisis escalated after Washington imposed sanctions in May on the military-run GAESA group, prompting several international operators to terminate their hotel management agreements to avoid US sanctions.

Official figures show that tourist arrivals fell by 58% between January and June compared with the same period last year.