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.
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