Cuba plunged into a country wide blackout after the collapse
of one of its major power plants Friday by evening
. Officials said a trickle of power to its grid
was restored. Grid operator Yeni said it hoped to
restart at least five of its oil fired generation plants
overnight so it can gradually restore power to broader areas
of the country. The vast majority of the country's
10 million residents were still in the dark. On
Friday night, scattered pockets of the capital Havana including
some of the city's major hospitals, saw lights flicker
back on shortly after dark. Residents lit candles and
fires and got through their Friday evening. A local
Rafael Pedro Gomez says small Children, the elderly and
the sick were suffering the most from the outage and
an employee of a hostel. Claudia Amanda Betancourt says
without electricity, guests in the room don't have air
conditioning. Virtually all businesses in Havana ground to a
halt on Friday earlier, the government was forced to
close schools. Most state workers were sent home in
a last ditch effort to keep the lights on.
After weeks of severe power outages. Cuba's President Miguel
Diaz Canel on TV told people to remain united and
urged caution to residents from misinformation on social media.
The blackout comes as residents are also suffering from shortages
of food, fuel, water and medicine. Officials
blamed the outage on deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and
rising demand. They also said strong winds from hurricane
Milton last week hampered fuel deliveries to power plants.
Cuba has long blamed us Cold War era embargo and
sanctions under former President Donald Trump for difficulties in acquiring
fuel and spare parts to operate its oil fired plants
. The country's largest oil supplier of Venezuela has also
reduced shipments in the first nine months of the year
. While Russia and Mexico have also greatly reduced fuel
shipments to the island.