Millions of Cubans navigated their day on Friday in total darkness as the country faced a nationwide blackout after a power plant failed, causing the nation’s electrical grid to disconnect.
Government officials, who had warned about ongoing blackouts in recent days, implemented emergency measures such as suspending classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling non-essential services
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said in an address on Thursday evening that the government had been “paralyzing” the economy in recent weeks in an attempt to continue providing electricity to citizens.
For weeks, Cuba has suffered a fuel shortage which has impacted the ability to run the power grid. Parts of the country have had no power for 12 hours a day. When power is turned on, demand increases putting a strain on the weak infrastructure.
That is, in part, due to an economic crisis and weather-related problems which have made imports difficult to obtain.
“The situation has worsened in recent days,” Marrero said in his address.“We must be fully transparent… we have been halting economic activities to ensure energy for the population.”
Then Friday morning, a thermoelectric power plant’s failure plunged the country into darkness.
Cuban officials said that the blackout, which started late Thursday, saw 1.64 gigawatts go offline during peak hours in the early evening, about half the total demand at the time.
Marrero sought to placate people’s concerns about the outage, claiming the country could expect an influx of fuel supply from Cuba’s state-owned oil company soon.
Changes to electricity rates for small- and medium-sized companies, which have proliferated since they were first authorized by the communist government in 2021, are also being considered, Marrero said.
Even in a country accustomed to frequent outages amid a deepening economic crisis, the size of Thursday night’s blackout left millions of Cubans on edge. Residents shut their doors and windows they typically leave open at night, and candles or lanterns were visible inside their homes.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel also blamed the United States trade embargo for the country’s inability to import fuel.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
