Millions of people in Cuba were left without electricity on Friday as the country was plunged into another major blackout. The country’s entire electrical grid suffered a “total disconnection” that caused a nationwide blackout, Cuba’s Energy Ministry said. Power was restored to some priority areas by late afternoon, including those near hospitals and water pumping stations in the capital Havana, grid operator UNE said. It is at least the sixth partial or total blackout to hit Cuba this year, where aging electrical infrastructure and chronic fuel shortages have been strained. UNE said the outage began shortly before 2:00 p.m. local time on Friday (6:00 p.m. GMT) due to a transmission failure coupled with poor weather conditions in central Cuba. Protocols to begin the “gradual restoration” of power were activated, the operator’s national director of load dispatch, Félix Estrada, said, and the process continued on Saturday. Cuba relies heavily on fuel imports, which means heavy US sanctions and an oil blockade. since the beginning of the year they have exacerbated the existing shortages. Food and medicine have also become scarcer, hospitals are struggling to function normally, and schools and government offices have to close. “Lately, it’s becoming a habit,” Havana resident Frank Lorenzo told the Reuters news agency on Friday. “Before it happened less frequently, once a month… yesterday we were without electricity for 24 hours, they turned it on for only an hour and it was cut off again.” “It’s one thing after another: no water, no cooking gas, no electricity,” 36-year-old school teacher Lidia Fernández told the AFP news agency. “Honestly, I don’t know how we haven’t gone crazy.” Francisco Rodríguez, 78, said his house had already been without power for 28 hours on Friday and he feared he would not have power “for several days.” announced in August, which are part of a broader pressure campaign against the Caribbean island’s leadership. Venezuela, Cuba’s regional ally, was believed to have sent it about 35,000 barrels of oil per day (about half of its oil needs) until supplies from Venezuela were cut off following the capture of its president Nicolás Maduro by the United States in January. US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on countries that ship oil to Havana, and several of those shipments have been confiscated by the United States. Meanwhile, Washington attributes Cuba’s energy crisis to internal mismanagement and accuses it of representing a “threat to national security.” Trump has openly discussed overthrowing its leadership, even threatening a “friendly takeover” in March of this year.
