People walk and ride on a street without power during a nationwide blackout in Havana yesterday. A power outage struck the entire island of Cuba in the second nationwide blackout in less than a week as its grid struggles under a US oil blockade. Photo / Yamil Lage, AFP
People walk and ride on a street without power during a nationwide blackout in Havana yesterday. A power outage struck the entire island of Cuba in the second nationwide blackout in less than a week as its grid struggles under a US oil blockade. Photo / Yamil Lage, AFP
Cuban authorities started to gradually restore power to the island today after the second nationwide blackout in a week, as the grid struggles because of an ageing infrastructure and a United States oil blockade.
Two-thirds of Havana had power again in the afternoon, the capital’s electricity company said, aday after the Energy Ministry reported a “total disconnection” of the national electric system in the country of nearly 10 million people.
The grid was reconnected across most of the country today, from Pinar del Rio in the far west to Santiago de Cuba in the far east, with two provinces left to link up, the state-owned Electric Union of Cuba said on X.
The outage comes as Cuba’s communist Government has faced growing pressure from US President Donald Trump, who imposed the de facto oil blockade in January and mused last week about “taking” the Caribbean island.
A top Cuban diplomat said the country’s military was “preparing these days for the possibility of military aggression”.
“We truly hope that it doesn’t occur,” Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told NBC in an interview taped before the blackout.
He said Havana was willing to continue talking to the US, but discussing changes to its political system was off the table.
Fishermen return from fishing on a makeshift raft in Havana during a national blackout. Cuban authorities scrambled to restore power to the island after the second nationwide blackout in less than a week. Photo / Yamil Lage, AFP
“Cuba has no quarrel with the United States. We do have the need and the right to protect ourselves. But we are willing to sit down,” Fernandez de Cossio said in the interview, which aired today.
There have been seven nationwide blackouts since 2024, making life more difficult for Cubans who fear food will spoil in refrigerators, among other problems in a country in economic crisis.
“The truth is, it gets harder every day to live with this situation,” Alina Quinones, a 48-year-old nurse, told AFP as she headed to the Havana hospital where she works, after barely sleeping.
She had no power, internet or phone connection, making it impossible to reach relatives in Matanzas, a city east of the capital.
Francisco Gonzalez, a 79-year-old retiree, also said he had a sleepless night in the dark, “sitting in an armchair at home, waiting for the power to come back on”.
Regular outages, as well as persistent shortages of food, medicine and other basics, are fuelling public frustration, with people banging pots at night as a form of protest.
A man walks on a street without electricity during a nationwide blackout in Havana. Photo / Yamil Lage, AFP
In a rare moment of violence, demonstrators vandalised a provincial office of the Cuban Communist Party last weekend.
The breakdowns have intensified since Cuba’s main regional ally and oil supplier, Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, was captured in a US military operation in January.
Trump subsequently threatened to impose tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
No oil has arrived since January 9, hitting the power sector, while public transport has dwindled and airlines have curtailed flights to the island, a blow to its all-important tourism sector.
‘Very severe’
The latest blackout was because of an outage in a generating unit at one of the country’s ageing thermoelectric plants, triggering a domino effect in the system, according to authorities.
The new blackout occurred as an international aid convoy began to arrive in Cuba this week, bringing sorely needed medical supplies, food, water and solar panels to the Caribbean island.
But getting oil to power its decades-old thermoelectric plants is becoming increasingly urgent.
“It is very severe. And we are acting as proactively as we can to cope with the situation,” Fernandez de Cossio told NBC.
“We do hope that fuel will reach Cuba one way or the other and that this boycott that the United States has been imposing does not last and cannot be sustained forever,” he said.
