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A blackout left millions without electricity in Havana and much of western Cuba on Wednesday, adding to daily strain on an island where fuel shortages and an aging power network have increased the frequency of outages. The government said the outage stretched across regions from Pinar del Rio in the west to Camaguey in the center, as Cuban officials worked to bring generation back online.
Radio Rebelde quoted an energy official as saying it could take at least 72 hours to restore operations at one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric power plants, the Antonio Guiteras facility, where a shutdown sparked the broader outage. Cuba’s electric utility later said on the social platform X that the disruption affected residents across the western half of the country.
Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy wrote on X late Wednesday that the government was powering critical infrastructure in the affected region as two power plants came online. He earlier wrote, “We are working to restore the National Electric System amid a complex energy situation,” on X, as authorities continued to describe restoration efforts as dependent on system conditions.
By late afternoon, Cuban authorities said crews had restored power to 2.5% of Havana—about 21,100 customers—and said the process was gradual. In a separate post on X, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said, “We trust in the experience and effort of the electrical workers to overcome this situation in the shortest possible time,” as night approached and power remained limited.
In Havana, residents used makeshift lighting and cooking methods while waiting for electricity to return. Some prepared “caldosas,” a soup shared among neighbors, and others used a rechargeable lightbulb for activities such as dominoes.
Radio Rebelde also reported what caused the Antonio Guiteras plant’s shutdown, citing the plant’s technical director Román Pérez Castañeda. Pérez Castañeda said, according to Radio Rebelde, that a pipe burst in the boiler, causing a water leak and subsequent fire that was extinguished without major damage, and that crews needed to locate the fault before repairing it and restarting the unit.
Several residents described the practical difficulties of living without power and the knock-on effects for transportation, food preparation, and care needs. Odalis Sánchez, who was out with her grandson and said she was unable to walk because of a recent operation, said she could not rely on public transportation because of fuel problems, and she described calling for a ride home; she said, “Without power, you can’t do anything. My grandson also is studying and I have to make him food. Public transportation isn’t helping.” Another resident, Genoveva Torres, said she was waiting for power to return at night as usual to cook dinner and reacted to news of the large outage by saying, “My God, until when?” and “Then we won’t eat. We’ll have to eat bread again.”
The blackout was the second such outage to hit western Cuba in three months. The earlier outage in early December lasted nearly 12 hours, and officials then said a fault in a transmission line linking two power plants caused an overload that led to the collapse of the energy system’s western sector.
Cuba has also struggled with dwindling oil reserves after the U.S. attacked Venezuela in early January, which halted critical petroleum shipments from that country, and later that month President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on countries that sell or supply Cuba with oil. Authorities have also said thermoelectric plants have been operating for more than 30 years with little maintenance due to the high cost, and they have cited the effect of U.S. sanctions in limiting the government’s ability to buy new equipment and specialized parts.
As the outage unfolded, the U.S. Embassy said on X that people should “prepare for significant disruptions” and conserve fuel, water, food and mobile phone batteries. Cuba’s government implemented fuel-saving measures last month and warned that jet fuel would not be available at nine airports until mid-March, according to the report.