Cuba said it has begun restoring power after the island’s electrical grid collapsed, the latest in a series of nationwide blackouts that underscore the increasingly fragile state of the country’s power generation system.
Cuba’s Energy Minister Vicente de la O’Levy said the government had prioritized hospitals and water pumping facilities as it began restoring power to scattered circuits across the country.
But according to official reports, millions of Cubans across the island remained without power by midday, prompting the Communist-run government to close schools and order non-official workers to stay home until power was restored.
The energy minister said he expected the system to be back online by Thursday, but said he would not rush the process.
De la O’Leavy said, “We have very capable experts and they are all involved. We are moving step by step.”
Cuba’s grid is in almost complete disarray amid fuel shortages, natural disasters and an economic crisis.
The island’s oil-fired power plants, already obsolete and struggling to keep the lights on, reached full crisis this year as oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico dropped, leading to a two-month Several nationwide blackouts occurred.
Shortages of food, medicine, water and electricity have made life unbearable for many Cubans, who have fled the island in record-breaking numbers over the past three years.
Cuba blames US sanctions for the crisis, which complicate financial transactions and fuel purchases.
plant failure
A fault at the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, the island’s top power producer, caused a blackout on Wednesday morning, which shut down around 2 a.m. local time.
The energy minister said several other major power plants were undergoing maintenance and were taken offline when the Matanzas plant failed, causing a power grid outage and nationwide collapse.
Even before Wednesday’s collapse, millions of people across Cuba were experiencing hours-long daily blackouts.
Havana hotel worker Danilis Mora woke up frustrated and confused on Wednesday, like many Havana residents who now experience regular blackouts throughout the week.
“I didn’t know it was a complete blackout again,” Mora said. “Where I live… there is no gas, if there is no electricity there is no way to cook food, it has to be done with firewood, or charcoal.”
There have been sporadic protests over the past two months over frequent power outages as well as shortages of water, gas and food.
The capital Havana was almost completely plunged into darkness due to system failure on Wednesday morning.
Officials said floating power plants, contracted by Turkey’s Karpowership, were generating electricity off the coast of Havana, providing power to a small number of hospitals and the city’s 2 million residents by early morning.
Cuba’s obsolete grid collapsed several times in October as fuel supplies dwindled and Hurricane Oscar struck the far eastern tip of the island, then again in November with the passage of Hurricane Rafael.
The Cuban government issued a decree last week ordering the state and private businesses to generate more of their own electricity from renewable resources. The rules also require businesses to limit air conditioning use, among other measures, as the country grapples with an increasingly severe energy crisis.
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