By Dave Sherwood and Marianna Parraga
HAVANA (Reuters) -Cuba restored a trickle of energy to its grid by mid-evening on Friday, officers mentioned, hours after the island plunged into a national blackout following the collapse of one in every of its main energy crops.
The overwhelming majority of the nation’s 10 million residents had been nonetheless at nighttime on Friday evening, however scattered pockets of the capital Havana, together with a few of the metropolis’s main hospitals, noticed lights flicker again on shortly after darkish.
Grid operator UNE mentioned it hoped to restart a minimum of 5 of its oil-fired era crops in a single day, offering sufficient electrical energy, it mentioned, to start returning energy to broader areas of the nation.
The Communist-run authorities closed colleges and non-essential trade early on Friday and despatched most state employees house in a last-ditch effort to maintain the lights on after weeks of extreme energy shortages. Leisure and cultural actions, together with evening golf equipment, had been additionally ordered closed.
However shortly earlier than noon, the Antonio Guiteras energy plant, the nation’s largest and most effective, went offline, prompting a complete grid failure and out of the blue leaving your complete island with out energy.
Officers mentioned late on Friday they had been working to repair the issue that had led the oil-fired plant to fail. They didn’t specify the reason for its collapse.
The blackout marks a brand new low level on an island the place life has change into more and more insufferable, with residents affected by shortages of meals, gasoline, water and medication.
Just about all commerce in Havana floor to a halt on Friday. Many residents sat sweating on doorsteps. Vacationers hunkered down in frustration. By dusk, town was nearly fully enveloped in darkness.
“We went to a restaurant and so they had no meals as a result of there was no energy, now we’re additionally with out web,” mentioned Brazilian vacationer Carlos Roberto Julio, who had lately arrived in Havana. “In two days, we now have already had a number of issues.”
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero this week blamed worsening blackouts through the previous a number of weeks on an ideal storm well-known to most Cubans – deteriorating infrastructure, gasoline shortages and rising demand.
“The gasoline scarcity is the largest issue,” Marrero mentioned in a televised message to the nation.
Sturdy winds that started with Hurricane Milton final week have crippled the island’s skill to ship scarce gasoline from boats offshore to its energy crops, officers mentioned.
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Cuba’s authorities additionally blames the U.S. commerce embargo, in addition to sanctions below then-President Donald Trump, for difficulties in buying gasoline and spare elements to function its oil-fired crops.
“The advanced situation is precipitated primarily by the intensification of the financial struggle and monetary and vitality persecution of the USA,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel mentioned on X on Thursday.
A White Home Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson mentioned, “The USA is to not blame for as we speak’s blackout on the island, or the general vitality scenario in Cuba.”
A State Division official mentioned late on Friday that Washington was intently monitoring the potential humanitarian affect of the blackout however that the Cuban authorities had not requested help.
For a lot of Cubans, far faraway from politics and accustomed to common energy outages, the nationwide blackout was nothing greater than a traditional Friday evening.
Carlos Manuel Pedre mentioned he had defaulted to easy pleasures to cross the time.
“Within the instances we’re dwelling in, with all the pieces occurring in our nation, essentially the most logical leisure is dominoes,” he mentioned as he performed the favored sport with associates. “We’re in complete disaster.”
Whereas demand for electrical energy has grown in recent times alongside Cuba’s fledgling non-public sector, gasoline provide has fallen sharply.
Cuba’s largest oil provider, Venezuela, has decreased shipments to the island to a median of 32,600 barrels per day within the first 9 months of the 12 months, barely half the 60,000 bpd despatched in the identical interval of 2023, in accordance with vessel-monitoring information and inner transport paperwork from Venezuela’s state firm PDVSA.
PDVSA, whose refining infrastructure can be ailing, has this 12 months tried to keep away from a brand new wave of gasoline shortage at house, leaving smaller volumes out there for export to allied nations like Cuba.
Russia and Mexico, which up to now have despatched gasoline to Cuba, have additionally vastly decreased shipments.
The shortfalls have left Cuba to fend for itself on the far costlier spot market at a time when its authorities is near-bankrupt.