HAVANA (AFP) – Millions of Cubans were without electricity for a second night after a widespread blackout hit the island, the fourth in less than six months.
Cubans have been facing a serious economic crisis marked by widespread food, fuel and medicine shortages, and the island’s aging and often failing power system has made things worse. The latest major outage began late Friday at a substation near the capital Havana and then spread nationwide, affecting most of the cash-strapped island’s 9.7 million people.
Authorities said they were working to restore power, but acknowledged progress was slow.
In the meantime, Cubans were doing their best to get along. People cooked meals using firewood due to the months-long gas shortage, while others gathered in homes or businesses with generators so they could charge their cell phones.
An official with the power company in Havana Ariel Mas Castellanos told local media that the equipment that failed “has been in service for many years and is getting old.”
The authorities also said that parallel circuits were helping provide power to priority sectors like hospitals and some neighbourhoods. “Several provinces have parallel circuits and generator units are starting to be synchronised” with the national grid, said President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
The outage plunged the streets of Havana into darkness, forcing people to navigate by phone and flashlight, and get home to dry taps. Cuba’s eight thermal power plants, nearly all dating to the 1980s or 1990s, experience regular failures.
The government is now rushing to install at least 55 solar parks this year – enough, it says, to supply 12 per cent of national demand.
