Cuba was hit Wednesday by another nationwide power outage, the fifth in less than a year, further straining the country’s economy and putting daily life under severe pressure.
“There was a total disconnection of the electrical system, possibly linked to an unexpected failure” at the Antonio Guiteras power plant in central Cuba, the Ministry of Energy and Mines announced on its X account. Authorities later clarified that the outage, which occurred around 9:15 a.m. local time (1:15 p.m. GMT), was caused by a false overheating signal in the plant’s boiler, the largest in the country. This triggered a shutdown and collapse of the entire grid.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz assured on X that Cuba had “a well-defined strategy” to restore power “as quickly as possible.” Since October 2024, the island nation of 9.7 million people has already suffered four previous nationwide blackouts, some lasting several days. In the streets of Havana, only a few recently solar-powered traffic lights remained operational, while many residents hurried back home to prepare for the possibility of an extended outage.
