Cuba experiences sixth major blackout of the year amid fuel shortages

A transmission fault combined with poor weather in central Cuba triggered a major blackout on Friday, leaving millions without electricity, according to the national grid operator UNE. Power was restored to priority sites such as hospitals and water pumping stations in Havana by late evening, while restoration efforts continued into Saturday.

UNE’s national load dispatch director Felix Estrada said protocols for a "gradual restoration" were activated after the outage began just before 14:00 local time. The incident marks at least the sixth partial or total blackout in Cuba this year, reflecting ongoing strain on the island’s aging electricity infrastructure and chronic fuel shortages.

Cuba relies heavily on imported fuel, and U.S. sanctions and an oil blockade imposed earlier this year have intensified those shortages. The government has attributed the fuel crisis to policies of the previous U.S. administration and recent sanction measures.

Residents described the frequent outages as increasingly common. > "Lately, it's becoming a habit," said Havana resident Frank Lorenzo to Reuters. > "Before it happened less frequently – once a month… just yesterday we were 24 hours without electricity, they turned it on for just an hour and it went down again," he added.

A schoolteacher, Lidia Fernandez, told AFP, "It's one thing after another: no water, no gas for cooking, no electricity. Honestly, I don't know how we haven't gone crazy."

The repeated blackouts have sparked rare public protests, despite a ban on unauthorised demonstrations that can lead to imprisonment. Venezuela had previously supplied about half of Cuba’s oil needs, but its deliveries were reduced after U.S. actions against Venezuelan officials earlier this year.