After a power plant fails, Cuba’s power grid falls apart, leaving millions of people without power

The Cuban government said that the country’s largest power plant failed early Wednesday morning, causing the island’s electricity system to go down. This is the latest in a string of failures that have caused the grid to become disorganized due to fuel shortages, natural disasters, and the economic crisis.

The energy and mines ministry of the country said that the highest-producing power plant on the island, Antonio Guiteras, shut down around 2 a.m., which caused the grid to fall.

Already old and struggling to keep the lights on, Cuba’s oil-fired power plants hit a full crisis this year when oil imports from Venezuela, Russia, and Mexico stopped. This led to multiple nationwide blackouts over two months.

A person who spoke to Reuters said that the system failure on Wednesday morning left Havana, the capital, almost fully in the dark. Up in the city, you could only see lights from a few big hotels and government buildings before morning.

Social media posts about blackouts in other parts of Cuba made it sound like the whole island of about 10 million people was without power, but the government hadn’t confirmed how bad the problem was yet.

The minister of energy and mines said that work was being done to get the power back on.

Cuba’s power grid went down several times in October when fuel sources ran out and Hurricane Oscar hit the farthest eastern part of the island. It happened again in November when Hurricane Rafael came through.