Cuba grid collapses again as hurricane looms

HAVANA — Cuba’s electrical grid collapsed again on Sunday, the fourth such failure in 48 hours as a looming hurricane threatened to wreak further havoc on the island’s decrepit infrastructure.

Cuba earlier on Sunday had said it was making headway restoring service after multiple false starts, though millions of people remained without electricity more than two days after the grid’s initial collapse.

“Restoration work began immediately,” the country’s energy and mines ministry said on X.

The clock was ticking as Hurricane Oscar bore down on the Caribbean island on Sunday, bringing strong winds and rain to northeastern Cuba and threatening to further complicate the government’s efforts to reestablish service.

Cuba’s meteorological survey warned of “an extremely dangerous situation” in eastern Cuba. The entire region was largely without electricity or communication ahead of the storm, which packed winds as high as 100 mph (161 kph).

The Communist-run government canceled school through Wednesday — a near unprecedented move in Cuba — citing both the hurricane and the ongoing energy crisis. Officials said only essential workers should report to work on Monday.

The repeated grid collapses marked a major setback in the government’s efforts to quickly restore power to exhausted residents already suffering from severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

The multiple setbacks in the first 48 hours also underscored the complexity of the work and the still precarious state of the country’s grid.

Cuba had restored power to 160,000 clients in Havana just prior to the grid’s Sunday collapse, giving some residents a glimmer of hope.

But housewife Anabel Gonzalez, of old Havana, a neighborhood popular with tourists, said she was growing desperate after three days without power.

“My cell phone is dead and look at my refrigerator. The little that I had has all gone to waste,” she said, pointing to bare shelves in her two-room home.

Energy and mines minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters earlier on Sunday that he expected the grid to be fully functional by Monday or Tuesday but warned residents not to expect dramatic improvements.

It was not immediately clear how much the latest setback would delay the government’s efforts.

Cuba’s national electrical grid first crashed around midday on Friday after the island’s largest power plant shut down, sowing chaos. The grid collapsed again on Saturday morning, state-run media reported.

By early evening on Saturday, authorities reported some progress restoring power before announcing another partial grid collapse.

Reuters reporters witnessed two small protests overnight after a grid failure left Havana in the dark late Saturday, one on the outskirts of the capital in Marianao and the other in the more central Cuatro Caminos.

Energy Minister O Levy said the blackouts were bothersome to residents, but he said most Cubans understood and supported government efforts to restore power.

Internet traffic dropped off sharply in Cuba over the weekend, according to data from internet monitoring group NetBlocks, as vast power outages made it all but impossible for most island residents to charge phones and get online.

The government has blamed weeks of worsening blackouts on deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand.

Cuba also blames the U.S. trade embargo, as well as sanctions instituted by then-President Donald Trump, for ongoing difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate and maintain its oil-fired plants.

The U.S. has denied any role in the grid failures.