70% of Cuba’s population has power back after blackout

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Seventy percent of Cuba’s population has power again as the island recovers from a nationwide blackout and a hurricane that left seven people dead, the government said Tuesday.

The lights went out across the Communist-run country on Friday after the collapse of the island’s largest power plant crippled the entire power grid.

“This morning, 70.89 percent of customers in Cuba have power,” the energy ministry said on X, formerly Twitter, adding that it was working to restore service to more people.

“It was about time. I’ve been sleeping badly for several days, without a fan,” Magalis Manzano, an 81-year-old resident of Havana, told AFP.

The situation was complicated by the passage of Hurricane Oscar, which struck Cuba on Sunday as a Category 1 storm.

At least seven people have died as a result of the hurricane, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Tuesday, one more than previously reported.

Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the breakup of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s — marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.

The island’s electricity is generated by eight aging coal-fired power plants, some of which have broken down or are under maintenance, as well as seven floating plants leased from Turkish companies and a raft of diesel-powered generators.

Authorities tried to restore the grid over the weekend, but it repeatedly failed.

Electricity supplies were restored to much of the capital — home to two million people — but some residents outside Havana were still waiting.

With concerns of instability on the rise, Diaz-Canel warned Sunday that his government would not tolerate attempts to “disturb public order.”

In July 2021, blackouts sparked an unprecedented outpouring of public anger, with thousands of Cubans taking to the street and chanting slogans including “Freedom!” and “We are hungry.”

Dozens of people took to the streets over the weekend in one neighborhood, banging pots and pans and shouting “Turn on the lights.”

Diaz-Canel blamed the problems on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening during Donald Trump’s presidency of a six-decade-long US trade embargo.

The government pledged that everyone would have electricity by late Tuesday.

Authorities have suspended classes and many business activities until Wednesday, with only hospitals and essential services remaining operational.