HAVANA — Cuba’s national electricity grid collapsed for the second time in three weeks Saturday evening, leaving the entire island without power and triggering a government-declared energy emergency that prompted the closure of all non-essential public services, international airports and schools indefinitely. The outage affected all 11 million residents and knocked out cellular phone towers.
The state electricity company said the collapse was caused by a failure at the Mariel power plant combined with insufficient fuel supplies for backup generators, compounded by U.S. sanctions restricting third-country fuel suppliers from dealing with Cuban state entities. The blackout is the most severe in Cuba’s history and comes amid a deepening economic crisis of widespread shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Diego Vargas is Media Hook’s Latin America Correspondent.
Written by Diego Vargas, Latin America Correspondent