Cuba’s national power grid went down on Saturday, cutting electricity for millions, officials said. The outage marks the second nationwide blackout in a week and the third major grid failure in March.
The state utility, Unión Eléctrica, reported on social media that at 18:32 local time (22:32 GMT) the entire National Electric Power System went offline. Authorities later said the failure was caused by a malfunction at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province, which triggered a cascading shutdown across the grid.
To maintain essential services, the Ministry of Energy and Mines activated “micro-islands” of generating units to supply power to hospitals, water systems, and other critical centres. Officials said restoration efforts are underway.
Frequent blackouts, sometimes lasting up to 12 hours a day, are now common in Cuba due to both fuel shortages and deteriorating infrastructure. Residents face disruptions to cooking, refrigeration, work, and healthcare, with some hospitals forced to cancel surgeries.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Cuba has not received foreign oil supplies for three months. The island produces only about 40% of the fuel it needs to run its economy.
The blackouts have been worsened by a U.S.-imposed oil blockade. Following the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, Cuba lost its key oil supplier. The Trump administration has cut Venezuelan exports to Cuba and threatened tariffs against other countries that sell oil to the island.
While the U.S. has temporarily eased sanctions on Russian oil due to the war in Iran, Cuba remains explicitly excluded from these exemptions. Mexico, another important supplier, has also halted shipments but continues to provide humanitarian aid.
The U.S. government has linked the crisis to Cuba’s command economy, while Havana blames Washington’s blockade for the worsening situation. President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that Cuba’s government is on the verge of collapse and has demanded political reforms in exchange for lifting sanctions.
U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to make the Strait of Hormuz part of U.S. territory have been mocked by Iran's Deputy Foreign Ministe...
Five years ago today, Taliban fighters entered Kabul, completing a rapid takeover of Afghanistan as the former government collapsed....
For fishermen along Pakistan’s southwestern coast, the consequences of the U.S.-Iran conflict are being felt far from the battlefield....
Hundreds of flights have been cancelled or rerouted at Catania Airport over the past week as ash from Mount Etna’s ongoing eruption continues to disrupt air travel in Sicily.
Iran says the Strait of Hormuz remains under its control, rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim of “total control” over the strategic waterway and insisting it will not reopen until Washington fulfils its commitments under an interim deal.
The U.S. will impose unprecedented measures on Iran in order to economically isolate the country, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said.
Wildfires across England and Wales have reached their highest level on record, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council, as firefighters struggle to contain outbreaks following a spell of extreme heat.
U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to make the Strait of Hormuz part of U.S. territory have been mocked by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, who said the sea passage "cannot be seized by tweet."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised deepening ties with North Korea, saying Moscow and Pyongyang are coordinating their efforts to ensure “regional security and stability”.
Russia and Ukraine traded large-scale overnight attacks targeting energy, industrial and military facilities on Saturday, with a three-month-old baby killed and 11 people injured in a Russian drone strike on a residential building in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.
At least 47 people have been killed after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia early on Saturday, triggering small tsunami waves and dozens of aftershocks, officials say.
Jason Arday, the former University of Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row, has been found dead. He was appointed Cambridge's youngest ever Black professor in 2023, but quit on 5 August, after being accused of lifting passages from his PhD from the work of other academics.
Wildfires across England and Wales have reached their highest level on record, according to the National Fire Chiefs Council, as firefighters struggle to contain outbreaks following a spell of extreme heat.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment