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Cuba suffers third nationwide blackout as power grid collapses
Cuba’s national electricity system collapsed for the third time in less than ten days, leaving roughly ten million people without power. The outage began around 11:05 a.m. local time on Tuesday when the Felton 1 thermoelectric unit in Holguín shut down, causing a sudden frequency change that forced the entire grid offline. Officials attribute the recurring failures to an ageing infrastructure, chronic fuel shortages and the United States’ oil embargo, which has limited imports to a single Russian tanker.
State‑run utility UNE reported that restoration is proceeding gradually. By evening, 24 substations and 68 distribution circuits in Havana were back online, supplying about 4‑24 % of the capital’s residents. Priority is being given to hospitals, water pumps and food‑processing plants through “micro‑islands” and other isolated supply schemes. Similar partial restorations are underway in Guantánamo, Cienfuegos, Matanzas and other provinces. The repeated blackouts have spurred public protests, with residents banging pots and demanding the lights be turned on.