Millions of Cubans woke up Sunday to find their homes still without power after another partial grid failure overnight, deepening the crisis that has hampered government efforts to restore electric service. Questions have been raised on its feasibility.
Lazaro Guerra, the country’s top electricity official, confirmed late Saturday a partial grid collapse in Cuba’s western provinces, including Havana.
Technicians were working to resolve the problem, Guerra said, but he did not give a timeline for when power would be restored to the area.
The capital of nearly two million residents appeared to be completely without power Sunday morning, as many Cubans formed lines for subsidized rations and contemplated conditions outside their homes.
State-run digital news outlet Cubadebate reported that the country’s largest power plant, Antonio Guiteras, came back online on Sunday and would begin contributing to the restoration of service during the day.
The third grid failure late on Saturday dealt a major blow to the government’s efforts to restore power to exhausted residents already facing severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
The clock was ticking as Hurricane Oscar made landfall in northeastern Cuba on Sunday morning, threatening to further complicate government plans to restore power.
The Cuban Meteorological Survey warned of an “extremely dangerous situation” in eastern Cuba. The entire region was largely without power or communications due to the storm, with winds reaching 100 mph (161 kph) by Sunday morning.
Cuba’s national electricity grid crashed for the first time around noon on Friday after the island’s largest power plant shut down, sparking chaos. State media reported that the grid collapsed again on Saturday morning.
By Saturday evening, officials reported some progress in restoring power before announcing another partial collapse of the grid.
“The process of restoring the power system remains complex,” Cuba’s energy ministry said on Friday.
increasing tension
Reuters journalists witnessed two small protests overnight, one in Marianao on the outskirts of the capital and the other in the more central Cuatro Camino, after a grid failure plunged Havana into darkness late on Saturday. Various videos of protests elsewhere in the capital began surfacing on social media late Saturday, although Reuters was not able to confirm their authenticity.
Internet traffic in Cuba dropped sharply on Saturday, as massive power outages made it nearly impossible for most island residents to charge phones and get online, according to data from Internet monitoring group NetBlocks.
“Network data shows Cuba is largely offline as the island experiences a second nationwide power outage,” NetBlocks said Saturday.
Even before the grid failures, severe power outages on Friday had forced Cuba’s Communist-run government to send non-essential state workers home and cancel school as it tried to save fuel.
The government blamed deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and increased demand for blackouts lasting 10 to 20 hours a day across much of the island for several weeks.
Cuba blames the US trade embargo as well as sanctions imposed by then-President Donald Trump for ongoing difficulties obtaining fuel and spare parts to operate and maintain its oil-fired plants.
The US has denied any role in the grid failures.
Cuba produces very little of its own crude oil. Fuel supplies to the island have declined significantly this year as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico, once important suppliers, have reduced their exports to Cuba.
Ally Venezuela cut supplies of subsidized fuel to Cuba by half this year, forcing the island to seek more expensive oil on the spot market.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
