Millions of Cubans Had Another Power Outage Wednesday

Wednesday Cuba's energy grid collapsed, 'leaving millions without power,' CNN reported, calling it 'the latest in a series of failures on an island struggling from creaking infrastructure, natural disasters and economic turmoil.'

Today Reuters reports:

Cuba said it had reconnected its national electrical grid on Thursday, though generation remained well below demand one day after a plant failure knocked out power to millions across the island... Around half of Cuba's power generation facilities are offline for maintenance or broken down. All are decades old and producing well under capacity.

As a result, a majority of Cuba's residents suffer hours-long, rolling blackouts on a daily basis even when the grid is functional. Cuba's electrical grid has been on the brink of collapse for years, as fuel shortages, a string of natural disasters and an economic crisis have left the island's government unable to maintain the system's decrepit infrastructure. Dwindling oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico tipped the system into full crisis this year, leading to several nationwide blackouts that have sparked unrest and increasing anger among the population. The blackouts, together with food, medicine and water shortages, have vastly complicated life on the island and driven a record-breaking exodus of its residents since 2020.

Authorities informed Cuba's citizens that scheduled power outages will now resume, reports ABC News. 'Cuban authorities said they will continue their current practice of implementing daily, five-hour power outages by block or zone as they have been doing for the past few months.'

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