HAVANA, May 14 (Reuters) – Cuba’s electrical grid suffered a partial collapse early Thursday morning (14), the country’s grid operator, UNE, said, cutting power across eastern Cuba and testing the patience of Cubans, already exhausted by seemingly endless blackouts amid a US fuel blockade.
By mid-morning, authorities had restored power to some essential services in the region, the grid operator said, although much of Cuba east of Camagüey, including the island’s second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba, remained virtually without electricity.
The Caribbean island of nearly 10 million people reached a tipping point this month as summer heat sets in and the vast majority — including in the capital Havana — now suffer without electricity for 20 hours or more a day.
The blackouts worsened dramatically from January after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any nation supplying fuel to the island. Venezuela and Mexico, once the country’s main oil suppliers, have since cut off shipments.
Trump predicted that Cuba would “collapse” and said he wants to overthrow the current communist government.
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No fuel
Cuba’s minister of mines and energy said on Wednesday that the island had run completely out of fuel oil and diesel, both essential to power the island’s electrical grid, and blamed the U.S. blockade for the blackouts.
Widespread protests erupted in Havana on Wednesday night as power cuts in some parts of the city extended for 24 hours or more, threatening to spoil frozen food supplies and making sleep virtually impossible for many residents.
“The country has no fuel and that’s not a lie,” said Rodolfo Aragón, a 55-year-old small businessman who said he saw little hope for the future amid Cuba’s conflict with the US. “Our economy has hit rock bottom.”
The United Nations last week deemed Trump’s fuel blockade illegal, saying it obstructed the “right of the Cuban people to development by undermining their rights to food, education, health, water and sanitation.”
