HAVANA (AP) — Cuba was plunged into darkness again on Friday, marking the second complete island-wide power failure in just one week. The blackout is the latest blow to a nation of nearly 10 million people struggling with a failing electrical grid and severe fuel shortages driven by a U.S. energy blockade.
While total power outages have grown more frequent in Cuba in recent times, two occurring just days apart is highly unusual. The country’s Electric Union announced the outage on the social media platform X.
Cuban officials had also acknowledged the first complete blackout, which struck on Monday, though the exact cause was never publicly identified. Authorities said at the time that an investigation had been launched.
The fuel crisis began intensifying in January, when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs against any nation that supplies oil to Cuba. That move deepened an already severe economic and financial crisis on the island, grinding public transportation to a halt and forcing the cancellation of tens of thousands of scheduled surgeries.
Cuba currently produces only 40% of the fuel it requires. A Russian tanker delivered 730,000 barrels of oil in late March, but that supply was exhausted by the end of April. To cope, the government has been enforcing deliberate power cuts that can last more than 24 hours at a stretch.
The blackouts are not isolated events. A power failure in mid-May knocked out electricity across the island’s eastern provinces, and a separate island-wide outage occurred in mid-March.
