On the third day of a massive blackout in Cuba, small street protests erupted in the capital city of Havana. The protests followed the Cuban authorities’ announcement that their attempt to restore power for the third time met with failure, leaving millions of people without electricity and raising further doubts about the government’s ability to effectively restore power. Reports from Reuters indicated that on October 18, Cuba’s largest power plant went offline due to a malfunction, causing the national grid to fail around midday. Consequently, state media reported that the grid experienced another outage early on the 19th.
By the evening of October 19, officials claimed there had been some progress in restoring power, yet the national grid was down again by nightfall. Authorities stated that nearly 20% of the population had regained electricity, with priority given to public facilities such as transportation and hospitals.
The Havana Electric Company announced on Telegram at 10:25 PM that the national power system had completely disconnected once more. However, this post was later removed from the official account without any explanation. As of the morning of October 20, which marked the third day of the blackout, millions remained without power.
Shortly after the post from Havana Electric, the Cuban Ministry of Energy stated they were working diligently to restore power and reported that the western subsystem, which includes the capital, had disconnected again.
The Ministry of Energy expressed on social media that “the process of rebuilding the power system remains complex.” The third failure of the national grid underscores the serious challenges faced by the authorities in their efforts to restore electricity, as local residents continue to suffer from severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.
