Cuba’s national power grid was shut down this Friday (10/18/2024) after one of the island’s main power plants failed, the Ministry of Energy and Mines said, plunging the entire country into a blackout.
The communist government closed schools and non-essential industries and sent most state workers home in a last-ditch effort to keep the lights on for residents.
Shortly before noon, the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the largest and most efficient in the country, stopped operating, causing a total grid failure and leaving some 10 million people without electricity.
“We are dedicating absolute priority to the attention and solution of this highly sensitive energy contingency for the nation,” said Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on the X social network.
“The system was left without power throughout the country,” Lázaro Guerra, general director of Electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, told state television. When the thermoelectric plant went out of service “the system collapsed” and “it has been at total zero since that time,” he added.
Grid officials said they did not know how long it would take to restore service.
The government said only essential employees in the state’s food and health industries were required to report to work Friday.
The crisis had already led authorities to cancel all non-vital government services. Schools at all levels, including universities, will remain closed until Sunday. Recreational and cultural activities, including nightclubs, were also ordered to close.
This crisis marks a new low in Cuba, where its citizens already suffer from shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine.
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