Power Fails In Cuba, Blacking Out Most Of The Island
Much of the nation of Cuba has been blacked out since Friday, when the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant, one of Cuba’s largest, went offline. Soon after, the nation’s entire electrical grid shut down.
The power has gone on and back off in places, a problem that has endured for more than three days, and as of late Sunday much of Cuba remained in the dark. The only islands of power are some hotels, hospitals and certain buildings with their own generators. The Cuban government reported on Sunday that power had been restored to only 16 percent of customers.
Complicating the problem, Hurricane Oscar made landfall in the nation’s extreme eastern region on Sunday night, bringing heavy rains to the eastern portion of the country.
“This is a somewhat unprecedented situation, even for Cubans,” said Patrick Oppmann, CNN’s Havana bureau chief, reporting from Cuba. “They have now gone almost two full days without power.”
CNN, Reuters and eyewitness reports said the capital city of Havana was almost entirely blacked out on Sunday night.
“No power, no gas, can’t place phone calls,” one Cuban citizen told Cigar Aficionado. “Food defrosting. No water service since yesterday.” He referred to the situation as “total chaos.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel placed blame on the U.S. embargo (which the Cubans refer to as the blockade) and a lack of stable fuel supplies.
