Cuba’s power grid suffered its fourth collapse in just 48 hours on Sunday, plunging the island into further darkness as a hurricane made landfall, compounding the country’s ongoing struggles with its fragile infrastructure.
Earlier on Sunday, Cuban authorities had expressed optimism about restoring electricity after several unsuccessful attempts. However, millions remained without power more than two days after the grid first went down. “Restoration efforts are ongoing,” stated the Ministry of Energy and Mines on social media platform X.
Hurricane Oscar, which hit the island’s eastern region, brought fierce winds, heavy rain, and dangerous storm surges. These severe weather conditions threatened to derail efforts to restore power, particularly in areas already hard-hit by previous outages.
Cuba’s meteorological institute issued warnings of an “extremely dangerous situation” in the eastern provinces, while the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kph) as the hurricane moved across the island.
According to forecasts, the storm’s center will continue to move across eastern Cuba through Monday, eventually heading towards the central Bahamas by Tuesday.
In response to the storm and energy crisis, the Cuban government took the rare step of canceling classes until Wednesday, urging only essential workers to report for duty on Monday.
The repeated failures of the power grid have been a significant blow to the government’s efforts to restore electricity to a population already grappling with severe shortages of basic necessities like food, medicine, and fuel.
Despite progress in restoring electricity to 160,000 customers in Havana before Sunday’s blackout, the overall situation remains dire. Anabel Gonzalez, a resident of Old Havana, expressed her frustration after three days without power. “My phone is dead, and everything in my refrigerator has spoiled,” she said, pointing to the empty shelves in her small apartment.
Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy earlier said the grid could be fully operational by Monday or Tuesday but urged residents to be cautious with their expectations, acknowledging the complexity of the situation.
It remains unclear how the latest setback will impact the timeline for full restoration. The first major grid failure occurred midday Friday when Cuba’s largest power plant went offline, triggering widespread outages. Additional grid failures on Saturday only deepened the chaos.
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