Cuba found itself to be in the dark on Friday evening as a nationwide power outage struck, affecting almost all 10 million Cubans. By Saturday morning, only 10% of the usual power generation had been restored, with priority given to critical services like hospitals and water systems. The issue began when an old transmission line in Havana malfunctioned, leading to a chain reaction that caused the grid to collapse.
Officials have said that reactivating outdated power plants would be tough, and they haven't shared any timeline for when full restoration will happen. This is the first major blackout of 2024, following last year's outages that left some regions without power for up to 20 hours a day.
Cuba’s government blames its energy crisis on the trade restrictions from the US, stating that these limitations block access to fuel, spare parts, and upgrades to infrastructure. The financial strain has worsened due to recent sanctions from President Donald Trump. On top of that, the economic difficulties, including a lack of food and medicine.