Overview
- The national grid suffered a total disconnection on Friday, leaving millions across the island without electricity and marking the seventh major nationwide outage this year and the 12th since late 2024.
- Cuban authorities and the state utility UNE said a failure in high-voltage transmission lines, compounded by unstable weather, caused the system collapse and prompted activation of service-restoration protocols.
- Restoration efforts are limited to small 'micro-islands' of supply and priority systems such as some hospital networks, with only about 5 percent of Havana customers reported reconnected by evening.
- Officials and multiple news outlets link repeated collapses to chronic diesel shortages, decades-old thermoelectric plants and limited spare parts after tighter U.S. restrictions reduced fuel deliveries this year.
- The blackout has disrupted water, phone and transport services, drawn warnings from the U.S. Embassy about unstable communications, and risks worsening humanitarian and economic hardship while investigations and repairs continue.