Cuba’s national power grid went dark Monday afternoon, with the country’s grid operator confirming a total collapse that left approximately 10 million people on the Caribbean island without electricity.
Grid operator UNE announced the complete nationwide outage and said crews are actively investigating what triggered the failure.
The island has been dealing with a worsening energy situation for months, enduring blackouts that have stretched from several hours to multiple days at a time. Officials have pointed to a badly deteriorated power infrastructure and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade that has severely restricted the island’s fuel supply as contributing factors.
For everyday Cubans, Monday’s total grid failure is another blow in an already exhausting situation. Rolling blackouts have already made it difficult for many residents to work or get a good night’s sleep during the sweltering Caribbean summer.
Cuba’s Communist-run government has faced a prolonged economic crisis for years, but the situation has reached new levels of severity under mounting pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Adding to the severity of Monday’s collapse — nearly two-thirds of the island was already experiencing power outages before the grid failed entirely.
