Cuba's national power grid collapses, deepening island-wide blackout crisis

Cuba began slowly restoring electricity Sunday after its national grid collapsed at midday, cutting power to about 10 million people and leaving hospitals, water systems and food production centers on emergency supply. By late afternoon, the state utility could cover only about 1% of Havana’s demand, a stark measure of how little of the capital’s load the system could carry.

The outage hit a country already living with hours-long blackouts that had stretched into days in some places. Nearly two-thirds of Cuba was already without power when the grid failed, so the sudden collapse arrived on top of a daily routine defined by heat, darkness and the scramble to keep food cold, water moving and phones charged. In Havana, residents had already been losing electricity for about 15 hours a day, while some provinces had gone without power for up to two days.

Ariel Sotelo, a Havana resident, said, “Look at my face, it says it all.” Another resident, Omar Ortega, said, “How long is this going to go on? Honestly, we can't take it anymore.”

The collapse was the eighth nationwide blackout since October 2025 and the third in 2026. The cause remains under investigation, while restoration crews began restarting decades-old generation plants as part of the recovery effort.

Cuba faces severe energy, fuel and medicine shortages. The power system has been weakened by chronic underinvestment and an aging grid, but it has also been squeezed by a tightening fuel supply, including cuts to shipments from Venezuela and pressure on Mexico to reduce deliveries.