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Millions of people across Cuba were left without electricity on Wednesday after a major blackout affected large parts of the island. The outage continues as the country faces severe fuel shortages along with economic pressure from the United States.
Officials said the blackout began after an unexpected shutdown at one of the country’s main power plants. As a result, about two-thirds of the island lost electricity.
Cuba’s national electricity company UNE said the outage stretched from the central province of Camaguey to Pinar del Rio in the west, and also affected the capital city, Havana.
Power cuts have become increasingly common in Cuba over the past few years. The country has been struggling with ongoing fuel shortages, worsened after the United States increased restrictions on oil shipments from its ally Venezuela earlier this year.
Authorities said Wednesday’s outage was triggered by a failure at the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Plant, located about 100 kilometres east of Havana. As per reports, the plant’s sudden shutdown disrupted the national electricity grid and led to the widespread blackout.
Cuba’s national electricity company, Union Electrica (UNE), said technicians were working to gradually restore power to affected areas. However, bringing the system fully back to normal could take time. The incident is the second major outage to affect western parts of the island in the last three months.
The country’s energy crisis has been worsened by ageing infrastructure and limited fuel supplies. These problems have also disrupted several basic services, including public transport and waste collection in some cities.
Cuba depends heavily on imported fuel to produce electricity. In the past, the country managed to cope partly due to support from regional allies, including Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro. Before January, Venezuela was believed to supply around 35,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba, meeting nearly half of the island’s oil needs.
Since then, the United States has seized a number of shipments of oil bound for Cuba. As a result, some regions have experienced power cuts lasting up to 18 hours a day, affecting hospitals, dialysis centres and water pumping stations.
Relations between the United States and Cuba have remained tense for decades, particularly since the communist Fidel Castro overthrew a US-backed government in 1959. The US has maintained economic sanctions and trade restrictions on Cuba since 1960.
Meanwhile, the fuel crisis has also begun to affect air travel. Air France announced that it will suspend its flights to Havana from the end of March until mid-June, citing difficulties caused by the shortage of fuel in the country.
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