Cuba suffers third nationwide blackout in two months

Cash-strapped Cuba was plunged into darkness on Wednesday for the third time in two months after the power grid failed.

The blackout dealt another blow to the communist-run island, which is reeling from the effects of two hurricanes, repeated power outages and a severe economic crisis.

At 2:08 am, "the electrical system... was disconnected when the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant went out," the energy and mines ministry wrote on its X account.

In mid-October, a massive four-day blackout hit the nation of 10 million people, leaving life in the capital Havana at a virtual standstill.

The cause of that outage, like Wednesday's, was a failure at the Antonio Guiteras plant, the biggest of Cuba's eight aging thermoelectric power plants.

Power was restored to most of the country in the following week, before Hurricane Rafael slammed into the island in early November, knocking out the grid nationwide once again.

The energy ministry downplayed the gravity of the latest blackout, saying on X that a "large percentage" of the system would be back up and running by the end of Wednesday.

Also writing on X, Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said the Antonio Guiteras plant suffered an "automatic breakdown."

He was further quoted by state media as saying there was no damage to the plants that were operating at the time of the blackout.

Schools in Havana were closed and non-essential state services suspended on Wednesday in by-now familiar scenes that have caused growing frustration among Cubans.

"We live in fear of power cuts and blackouts," Orlando Matos, a 56-year-old night watchman in the central Havana district of Vedado, complained.

- 'Depressed' -

AFP Cuba is in the throes of a broader economic malaise

Communist authorities have blamed previous outages on difficulties in acquiring fuel for the country's power plants -- attributed to the tightening, during Donald Trump's first presidency, of a six-decade-long US trade embargo.

But the island is also in the throes of a broader economic malaise with what experts call its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which heavily subsidized the one-party state.

The island gets its power from eight decrepit oil-powered plants that are constantly being patched up, as well as a fleet of generators and floating power plants rented from Turkey.

The generators and Turkish plants are run on imported fuel.

The repeated power cuts triggered protests last month -- a rare occurrence on the island.

Osnel Delgado, a 39-year-old contemporary dancer, complained Wednesday that the situation was making him "depressed."

"You try to constantly overcome the situation but when the environment doesn't help you, you wind up not wanting to do anything," he said.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets across the island on July 11, 2021, shouting "We are hungry" and "Freedom!" in what was the biggest challenge to the government in years.

According to the Mexico-based Justicia 11J NGO, which focuses on human rights in Cuba, more than 1,500 people were arrested after those protests, of whom 600 are still in prison.

© Agence France-Presse