Cuba suffered another nationwide blackout of its National Electric System (SEN) on Tuesday, leaving the entire country without power, officials said. It was the third such outage in two weeks as a US oil embargo continued to strain the island's electricity grid.
Fuel supplies have dwindled across Cuba since January, when US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to the island, worsening its prolonged economic and financial crisis. Public transport has largely been suspended, while officials have cancelled tens of thousands of surgeries.
Cuba produces only about 40% of the fuel it needs, and there is no immediate solution in sight to secure additional imports.
Grid restoration under way
The state-run Electric Union said a malfunction at a generating unit in the eastern province of Holguin triggered "a sudden frequency change", causing the nationwide blackout around midday.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Electric Union said restoration protocols had been activated. Authorities are establishing isolated electricity networks, known as "micro-islands", before reconnecting them to restore power to priority facilities, including hospitals and food processing plants.
By the afternoon, electricity had been restored to parts of the capital, Havana, while authorities said around 4% of the city had regained power. The provinces of Guantanamo and Cienfuegos also began restoring electricity to hospitals, while Matanzas reported power had returned to the city's historic centre.
Repeated outages disrupt daily life
The latest outage follows two nationwide blackouts last week, on Monday and Friday, that left more than nine million Cubans without electricity. The island also experienced two nationwide outages in March, along with several regional blackouts.
The repeated outages have disrupted transport, shortened working hours, grounded flights and affected public health services. They have also interrupted daily activities such as cooking, water supply, internet access and telephone services.
On the streets of Havana, many residents said they were no longer surprised by the outages.
"These blackouts are normal in Cuba now. If something else happened, it would be strange," said Roberto Liana, a 69-year-old retail worker.
Others said they had learned to adapt. "We're improvising and doing what we can," said Sayli Aguilera, 25, a mother of two.
Many households have installed solar panels and portable battery systems to cope with the outages, while electric motorcycles and tricycles powered by photovoltaic energy have become a common form of transport.
