The Cuban Electric Union, which reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, announced a total blackout across the island without initially giving a cause for the outage.
From that moment, a cascading effect occurred in the machines that were online,” said a report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which activated “micro-islands” of generating units to provide power to vital centres, hospitals and water systems.
Authorities said they were working to restore power.
Power outages, whether nationwide or regional, have become relatively common in the past two years because of breakdowns in the ageing infrastructure. The breakdowns are compounded by daily blackouts of up to 12 hours caused by fuel shortages, which also destabilise the system.
The last nationwide blackout was on Monday. Saturday’s outage was the second in the past week and the third in March.
The blackouts severely disrupt daily life, reducing working hours, making it difficult for people to cook or refrigerate food, and forcing hospitals to cancel some surgical operations.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said the island has not received oil from foreign suppliers for three months. Cuba produces barely 40% of the fuel it needs to power its economy.
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