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HAVANA (AP) — On Saturday, a widespread power failure plunged Cuba into darkness for the third time this March, as the nation grapples with aging infrastructure and the challenges posed by a U.S. oil embargo.
The Cuban Electric Union, under the Ministry of Energy and Mines, reported a complete blackout affecting the entire island, though they initially did not specify what caused the outage.
Later, the union identified the root of the problem as an unexpected malfunction at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant located in Camagüey province.
A report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines detailed that the failure triggered a domino effect, impacting other machines that were operational. In response, “micro-islands” of power units were activated to ensure electricity for critical services, including hospitals and water systems.
Authorities assured the public that efforts were underway to restore power across the country.
Power outages, whether nationwide or regional, have become relatively common in the last two years due to breakdowns in the aging infrastructure. The breakdowns are compounded by daily blackouts of up to 12 hours caused by fuel shortages, which also destabilize the system.
The last nationwide blackout occurred on Monday. Saturday’s outage was the second in the past week and the third in March.
The blackouts have a significant impact on the population, whose lives are disrupted by reduced work hours, lack of electricity for cooking and food spoilage when refrigerators stop working, among many other consequences. In some cases, hospitals have canceled surgeries.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said the island has not received oil from foreign suppliers for three months. Cuba produces barely 40% of the fuel it needs to power its economy.
Cuba’s aging grid has drastically eroded in recent years. But the government has also blamed the outages on a U.S. energy blockade after U.S. President Donald Trump in January warned of tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The Trump administration is demanding that Cuba release political prisoners and move toward political and economic liberalization in return for a lifting of sanctions. Trump also has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover of Cuba.”
Another reason Cuba has been struggling with dwindling oil is the removal of Venezuela’s leader, which halted critical petroleum shipments from the nation that had been a steadfast ally to Havana.
Trump has for months suggested Cuba’s government is on the verge of collapse. After a previous time Cuba’s electric grid collapsed, Trump told reporters he believed he’d soon have “the honor of taking Cuba.”