Cuba began restoring its energy system on Sunday following a nationwide grid collapse that occurred on Saturday afternoon and evening, leaving millions of people in the dark—for the second time this week across the country, and the third time on a massive scale since the United States tightened an oil embargo against the island in January.
A report from the state-run Electric Union and the Ministry of Energy and Mines indicated that, by early Sunday morning, approximately 72,000 customers in the capital—including five hospitals—had already regained power. Meanwhile, in provinces such as Matanzas in the west, and Granma and Holguín in the east, local "microsystems" had been established to supply the most critical vital facilities. By shortly after noon, more than 280,000 users in Havana had their electricity restored.
The previous nationwide blackout had occurred last Monday and took several days to resolve, while a massive outage on March 4 affected the entire western region of Cuba—the country's most populous area.
Cuba is facing an unprecedented energy crisis following the oil embargo imposed on the island by U.S. President Donald Trump in January—a move intended to pressure for a change in the political model—and coming on the heels of attacks against Venezuela, one of the island's primary fuel suppliers.
Daily power outages—whether regional or circuit-specific—lasting for hours are taking a heavy toll on the population, creating difficulties with cooking, water supply, and food preservation, as well as causing damage to household appliances; these issues are further compounded by widespread system collapses, such as the one that occurred on Saturday.
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