Millions of Cubans awoke on Sunday to find their homes still without power after another partial grid failure overnight, deepening a crisis that has raised questions over the viability of the government’s efforts to reestablish electrical service.

The country’s top electricity official, Lazaro Guerra, confirmed a partial grid collapse in the western provinces of Cuba, which includes Havana, late on Saturday.

Technicians were working to resolve the issue, Guerra said, but did not provide a timeline for when power would be restored to the region.

The capital of nearly two million residents appeared to be entirely without electricity early on Sunday, as many Cubans formed lines for subsidized rations and mulled the situation outside their homes.

State-run digital news outlet CubaDebate reported that the country’s largest power plant, Antonio Guiteras, was back online Sunday and would begin contributing to a restoration of service over the course of the day.

A third grid failure late on Saturday marked a major setback in the government’s efforts to quickly restore power to exhausted residents already suffering from severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

The clock was ticking as Hurricane Oscar bore down on northeastern Cuba early on Sunday, threatening to further complicate the government’s plans to restore power.

Cuba’s meteorological survey warned of “an extremely dangerous situation” in eastern Cuba. The entire region was largely without electricity or communication ahead of the storm, which packed winds as high as 100 miles per hour (161 kph) by midmorning Sunday.

Cuba’s national electrical grid first crashed around midday on Friday after the island’s largest power plant shut down, sowing chaos. The grid collapsed again on Saturday morning, state-run media reported. 

By early evening on Saturday, authorities reported some progress restoring power before announcing another partial grid collapse.

“The process of reestablishing the electrical system continues to be complex,” Cuba’s energy ministry said on X.

RISING TENSIONS

Reuters reporters witnessed two small protests overnight after a grid failure left Havana in the dark late Saturday, one on the outskirts of the capital in Marianao and the other in the more central Cuatro Caminos. Various videos of protests elsewhere in the capital began to crop up on social media late on Saturday, though Reuters was not able to verify their authenticity.

Internet traffic dropped off sharply in Cuba on Saturday, according to data from internet monitoring group NetBlocks, as vast power outages made it all but impossible for most island residents to charge phones and get online. 

“Network data show that Cuba remains largely offline as the island experiences a second nationwide power outage,” Netblocks said on Saturday.

Even before the grid failures, a dire electricity shortfall on Friday had forced Cuba’s Communist-run government to send non-essential state workers home and cancel school as it sought to conserve fuel.

The government has blamed weeks of worsening blackouts – as long as 10 to 20 hours a day across much of the island – on deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand. 

Cuba also blames the US trade embargo, as well as sanctions instituted by then-President Donald Trump, for ongoing difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate and maintain its oil-fired plants.

The US has denied any role in the grid failures.

Cuba produces little of its own crude oil. Fuel deliveries to the island have dropped significantly this year as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico, once important suppliers, have reduced their exports to Cuba.

Ally Venezuela slashed by half its deliveries of subsidized fuel to Cuba this year, forcing the island to search for more costly 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.)

Residents play dominoes during a massive blackout after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, on October 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Some electricity was restored in Cuba, the government said Saturday (October 19, 2024), after the island nation’s worst blackout in at least two years left millions without electricity for two days.

Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said the country had 500 megawatts in its electrical grid early Saturday, compared to the 3 gigawatts that are normally generated. He posted on the social media platform X that “several substations in the west now have electricity.”

Mr. O Levy also said two thermoelectric power plants are back and two more will resume their operations “in the next few hours.”

About half of Cuba was plunged into darkness on Thursday (October 17, 2024) evening, followed by the entire island on Friday (October 18, 2024) morning after the plant failed.

Havana’s electricity company said in a statement earlier Saturday that a part of its western system was disconnected “after the exit of one of the plants that was delivering service.” That issue has left some parts of the city in the dark once again, with the total megawatts dropping from 500 to 370.

The streets of Cuba’s capital, where two million people live, were quiet on Saturday, with few cars driving by after a night that was lit by candles and lamps. The impact of the blackout goes beyond lighting, as services like water supply also depend on electricity to run pumps.

The blackout was considered to be Cuba’s worst in two years, after a Category 3 hurricane damaged power installations and it took days for the government to fix them. This year, some homes have spent up to eight hours a day without electricity.

Besides the Antonio Guiteras plant, whose failure on Friday affected the entire national system, Cuba has several others and it wasn’t immediately clear whether they remained functional.

There is no official estimate for when the blackout will end. Even in a country that is used to outages as part of a deepening economic crisis, Friday’s collapse was massive.

The Cuban government has announced emergency measures to slash electricity demand, including suspending school and university classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling nonessential services. Officials said that 1.64 gigawatts went offline during peak hours, about half the total demand at the time.

Local authorities said the outage, which started on a small scale Thursday, stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residential air conditioners. Later, the blackout got worse due to breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.

Changes to electricity rates for small- and medium-sized companies, which have proliferated since they were first authorized by the communist government in 2021, are also being considered.