Cuba's Electrical Grid Crisis Leads to Nationwide Blackouts

Cuba's power grid collapsed, causing widespread blackouts across the island, including Havana. An electrical substation failure in the capital triggered the outage, affecting much of the country. This event follows recent widespread blackouts and highlights the country's frail power infrastructure amidst ongoing economic struggles.

Late Friday night, Cuba's national electrical grid suffered a catastrophic failure, leading to massive blackouts in Havana and throughout the nation. According to the country's Energy and Mines Ministry, an electrical substation in Havana experienced a breakdown at 8:15 p.m. (0015 GMT), cutting power to western parts of the island, including the capital.

As darkness blanketed Havana's famous waterfront, only a handful of tourist hotels lit the skyline, powered by fuel-fired generators. Social media reports indicated extensive outages in provinces both east and west of Havana, leaving much of the Caribbean nation of 10 million without electricity.

This latest grid failure comes in the wake of a series of national power outages late last year, which nearly crippled Cuba's already struggling and outdated power system. Exacerbated by fuel shortages, natural disasters, and economic challenges, prolonged blackouts have become commonplace, exacerbating severe shortages of food, medicine, and water, and prompting many Cubans to flee the island in unprecedented numbers.

(With inputs from agencies.)