Power goes out on Entire Island of Cuba
Power outages have been chronic in Cuba for years and have worsened in recent months. But the situation was so critical in the past three days that the government took measures to keep the lights on.
On Thursday night, it announced schools would close and most state workers would stay home Friday in an effort to conserve energy. But it wasn’t enough and by 11 a.m. Friday, Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric, the largest power plant, went offline causing a grid failure,NBC reported.
The communist-run country’s aging and decrepit infrastructure has frequent outages because of difficulties with maintenance and lack of fuel. In some provinces outside Havana, many people have been facing blackouts that last up to 20 hours at a time.
Cuba's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, wrote on X that they are giving “absolute priority” to solving the problem, and that “there won’t be any rest” until the power comes back on.
