Cuba Suffers Fourth Nationwide Blackout In Five Months

Havana, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Mar, 2025) Cuba suffered a general blackout on Friday caused by a crash of its national electricity grid, officials said, the fourth major power outage on the cash-strapped communist island in five months.

"At around 8:15 pm tonight, a breakdown... caused the significant loss of power in western Cuba and with it the fall of the national electricity system," the Ministry of Energy and Mines said.

Writing on the social network X, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said the government was "working tirelessly" to restore power.

Just before midnight, authorities said independent circuits were now supplying power to priority sectors such as hospitals in some provinces.

In by now familiar scenes, the streets of Havana were plunged into darkness, forcing people to navigate by phone and flashlight.

"My God, this is terrible, we're in for a dark weekend," said Karen Gutierrez, a 32-year-old ice cream seller in Havana.

Only a few hotels and private businesses with generators still had lights on, as did essential services such as hospitals.

Angelica Caridad Martinez, a resident of the central city of Camaguey, said she was about to sit down for dinner when the power failed.

"I'm not even hungry anymore," the 50-year-old told AFP. "This situation is unsustainable, no one can live like this."

Andres Lopez, a 67-year-old resident of the eastern province of Holguin, said he had not been expecting yet another blackout so soon.

"It really bugs me," he said. "Let's see when they get it (the power) back on."

The island of 9.7 million inhabitants suffered three nationwide blackouts in the final months of 2024, two of them lasting several days.

The repeated outages come as the island battles its worst economic crisis in 30 years, marked by widespread shortages of food, medicine and fuel, high inflation and a massive outflow of migrants, mostly bound for the United States.