Cuba hit by second blackout after grid collapse

Cubans experienced their second black out wave Saturday after government officials said they were working to restore electrical service to hospitals and crucial service centers after a grid failure on Friday.

“At 6:15 am a new total outage occurred of the national electroenergetic system,” a post on the Cuba Electrical Union’s official Telegram channel said. “The Electric Union is working to reestablish it.”

Central and Eastern subsystems were not affected ,according to a Cuban state agency. 

The country’s power grid has been compromised twice within 24 hours, leaving approximately 10 million without electricity. 

Cuba cited U.S. sanctions, power plant outages and fuel shortage as reasons for the widespread outage, CNN reported. The country’s president Miguel Diaz-Canel met with state officials at the National Cargo Office Saturday to discuss potential solutions.

“They are working hard and tirelessly to restore the electrical system, by priorities, in order to achieve stability,” Diaz-Canel posted on the social platform X. “The wisdom and poise of those who are the protagonists of these complex hours, many of them young, is admirable.”