By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s efforts to revive electrical energy to the island failed for the third time on Saturday night, Cuban authorities mentioned shortly earlier than midnight, leaving hundreds of thousands of individuals in the dead of night and elevating new questions on feasibility of the federal government’s try to revive electrical energy service. .
Cuba’s nationwide energy grid crashed for the primary time round noon Friday, after the island’s largest energy plant shut down. The community collapsed once more on Saturday morning, state media reported.
In the early night, authorities reported some progress in restoring electrical energy earlier than saying that the grid had collapsed once more.
“Tonight at 10.25pm the entire disconnection of the nationwide electrical energy system occurred once more,” the corporate Havana Electric mentioned on Telegram on Saturday night.
The put up was later faraway from the corporate’s Telegram feed. It wasn’t instantly clear why the put up was eliminated, however hundreds of thousands of individuals have been nonetheless with out electrical energy Sunday morning.
Cuba’s Energy Ministry mentioned shortly after the Havana Electric shunt that it was working to re-establish service, including that “one other disconnection” had occurred within the “Western subsystem,” which incorporates the capital Havana.
“The strategy of restoring the electrical energy system continues to be advanced,” the Ministry mentioned on X.
A 3rd grid collapse marks a serious setback within the authorities’s efforts to rapidly restore electrical energy to exhausted residents already affected by acute shortages of meals, medication and gas.
Reuters journalists witnessed two small protests in a single day, one in Marianao and the opposite within the Cuatro Caminos space of Havana. Various movies of protests in different elements of the capital started to appear on social media on Saturday night, though Reuters was unable to confirm their authenticity.
Internet visitors fell sharply in Cuba on Saturday, in accordance with knowledge from Internet monitoring group NetBlocks, as widespread energy outages made it almost not possible for many of the island’s residents to cost their telephones and get on-line.
“Network knowledge exhibits Cuba stays largely offline because the island experiences a second nationwide energy outage,” Netblocks mentioned on Saturday.
Even earlier than the grid failures, a extreme electrical energy deficit on Friday had compelled Cuba’s communist-led authorities to ship house non-essential state employees and cancel college for kids in an effort to avoid wasting gas for energy era.
The authorities has blamed weeks of worsening blackouts – as much as 10-20 hours a day throughout a lot of the island – on deteriorating infrastructure, gas shortages and rising demand.
Cuba additionally blames the US commerce embargo, in addition to the sanctions instituted by then-President Donald Trump, for the continued difficulties in buying gas and spare elements for the operation and upkeep of its oil-fired vegetation.
The United States has denied any function within the grid failures.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Alison Williams)
