By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s efforts to restore electricity to the island were derailed for a third time on Saturday night, Cuban authorities said shortly before midnight, leaving millions of people in the dark and raising new questions on the viability of the government’s attempt to restore electricity service. .
Cuba’s national power grid collapsed for the first time around midday Friday after the island’s largest power plant shut down. The network collapsed again on Saturday morning, state media reported.
By early evening, authorities reported progress in restoring power before announcing that the grid had collapsed again.
“This evening, at 10:25 p.m., the total disconnection of the national electro-energy system occurred again,” Havana Electric company said on Telegram on Saturday evening.
The post was later deleted from the company’s Telegram feed. It’s unclear why the post was deleted, but millions of people were still without power early Sunday.
Cuba’s Energy Ministry said shortly after Havana Electric’s release that it was working to restore service, adding that “another disconnection” had occurred in the “western subsystem,” which includes the capital Havana.
“The process of restoring the electricity system continues to be complex,” the ministry said on X.
A third grid collapse marks a major setback in the government’s efforts to quickly restore electricity to exhausted residents already suffering severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Reuters journalists attended two small protests overnight, one in Marianao and the other in Havana’s Cuatro Caminos neighborhood. Various videos of protests elsewhere in the capital began appearing on social media on Saturday evening, although Reuters was unable to verify their authenticity.
Internet traffic fell sharply in Cuba on Saturday, according to data from internet monitoring group NetBlocks, as widespread power outages made it virtually impossible for most people on the island to charge their phones and get online.
“Network data shows Cuba remains largely offline as the island experiences a second nationwide power outage,” Netblocks said Saturday.
Even before the grid outages, a severe electricity shortage on Friday had forced Cuba’s communist government to send non-essential civil servants home and cancel children’s school, to save fuel for electricity generation.
The government has blamed worsening weeks of power outages – reaching 10 to 20 hours a day across much of the island – on deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand.
Cuba also blames the U.S. trade embargo, as well as sanctions instituted by then-President Donald Trump, for continued difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate and maintain its oil-fired power plants.
The United States has denied any role in the network outages.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; editing by Alison Williams)
