Havana, Cuba. Cuba began efforts early on Sunday to restore power after its grid collapsed for the second time in a week. The blackout comes amid a U.S. oil blockade that authorities say has hit the island’s energy infrastructure.
Grid collapse and nationwide outage
The grid collapsed on Saturday at 6:32 p.m. (2232 GMT) after a major power plant in Nuevitas, in Camaguey province, failed and went offline, grid operator UNE said. UNE said the failure caused a cascade effect that knocked out power to the country’s approximately 10 million people.
Steps to restore electricity
Cuba’s energy and mines ministry said early on Sunday it had established microsystems, smaller closed circuits, in all provinces to restore power for vital services including hospitals, water supply and food distribution.
The ministry said Cuba’s two gas-fired power plants operated by Energas were running in Varadero and Boca de Jaruco. It added that electricity had reached the nearby Santa Cruz oil-fired plant.
Conditions in Havana and communications disruptions
Shortly after sunrise on Sunday, Havana’s streets were crowded with early risers sitting on doorsteps, speaking with neighbors and swatting mosquitoes under clear skies and cool weather.
“Life doesn’t change. We’re stuck in the same rut,” said Havana resident Leoni Alberto, who said he was forced to cook with firewood at least twice a week due to outages. “It’s absolute madness. There’s no other way around it.”
Cellular service and internet were almost entirely unavailable in most areas, leaving many without communication.
Officials cite challenges and recent outages
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said the recovery effort was taking place under “very complex circumstances.”
Cuba’s electrical grid has been unreliable for months, leaving residents without power for hours a day and sometimes longer. Saturday’s outage was the third major power outage this month after a large portion of the system went down on March 4 when a key thermoelectric generating plant failed, and the grid went completely offline on Monday for unexplained reasons.
How has the latest blackout affected your access to essential services such as water, food, and communications?
