Cuba suffers another national blackout

Cuba was plunged into darkness Monday after another nationwide blackout swept the island, underscoring a deepening energy crisis in the Caribbean nation, whose economy has been pushed to the brink after decades of Western sanctions. It was the country's third nationwide blackout this year and the eighth since October.

Cuba's state power utility said in an emergency statement that electricity service had failed across the country. By Monday afternoon, officials had restored enough power to meet only about 1% of demand in the capital, Havana, Reuters reported.

The outage left most of Cuba's roughly 10 million people struggling through stifling heat and humidity, with the heat index nearing 40 degrees Celsius. According to Reuters, the national grid had been under severe strain long before it finally collapsed. Nearly two-thirds of the country was already without electricity when the system failed. "The heat during the blackout makes it impossible to work or even sleep. We're simply trying to endure it," one Havana resident said.

In Santiago de Cuba, the country's second-largest city, residents have lost both electricity and gas service, forcing many to prepare meals over charcoal and firewood, The New York Times reported.

Since Fidel Castro's communist revolution in 1959, Cuba has remained locked in confrontation with the United States and other Western nations, facing decades of economic sanctions. After returning to the White House in January last year, U.S. President Donald Trump openly vowed to bring down Cuba's communist government and intensified pressure on Havana.

The Trump administration also removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Cuba's most important regional ally, from power in January this year. That effectively cut off the flow of subsidized Venezuelan crude, a key source of fuel for the island, further worsening Cuba's energy shortages. Trump has also threatened steep tariffs on countries, including Mexico, that continue to supply oil to Cuba, leaving Havana with few viable options to secure future fuel imports.

The energy crisis is now taking a heavy toll on Cuba's health care system, once held up by the communist government as one of its proudest accomplishments. The Associated Press reported that even Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital in Havana, one of the country's leading medical centers, has been unable to provide CT scans for more than six months because of equipment failures compounded by chronic power shortages.


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