People stroll on a avenue in the darkish throughout a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, March 21, 2026.
Ramon Espinosa/AP
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Ramon Espinosa/AP
HAVANA — Cuba’s power grid collapsed Saturday leaving the nation without electricity for a 3rd time in March as the communist authorities battles with a decaying infrastructure and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade.
The Cuban Electric Union, which studies to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, introduced a complete blackout throughout the island without initially giving a trigger for the outage.
The union later mentioned the blackout was brought on by an surprising failure of a producing unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province.
“From that moment, a cascading effect occurred in the machines that were online,” mentioned a report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which activated “micro-islands” of producing models to supply power to important facilities, hospitals and water methods.
Authorities mentioned they have been working to revive power.
Power outages, whether or not nationwide or regional, have turn out to be comparatively widespread in the final two years attributable to breakdowns in the growing old infrastructure. The breakdowns are compounded by each day blackouts of as much as 12 hours brought on by gasoline shortages, which additionally destabilize the system.
The final nationwide blackout occurred on Monday. Saturday’s outage was the second in the previous week and the third in March.
The blackouts have a major influence on the inhabitants, whose lives are disrupted by diminished work hours, lack of electricity for cooking and meals spoilage when fridges cease working, amongst many different penalties. In some circumstances, hospitals have canceled surgical procedures.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has mentioned the island has not acquired oil from overseas suppliers for three months. Cuba produces barely 40% of the gasoline it must power its financial system.
Cuba’s growing old grid has drastically eroded in recent times. But the authorities has additionally blamed the outages on a U.S. vitality blockade after U.S. President Donald Trump in January warned of tariffs on any nation that sells or offers oil to Cuba. The Trump administration is demanding that Cuba launch political prisoners and transfer towards political and financial liberalization in return for a lifting of sanctions. Trump additionally has raised the chance of a “friendly takeover of Cuba.”
Another purpose Cuba has been battling dwindling oil is the removing of Venezuela’s chief, which halted essential petroleum shipments from the nation that had been a steadfast ally to Havana.
Trump has for months prompt Cuba’s authorities is on the snapping point. After a earlier time Cuba’s electrical grid collapsed, Trump instructed reporters he believed he’d quickly have “the honor of taking Cuba.”
