Cuba Experiences Nationwide Power Grid Collapse
5 sources across 5 countries
Who reported this
- Folha de S.Paulo
- El Tiempo
- Deutsche Welle
- South China Morning Post
- Bloomberg
What the colours mean
- Left
- Centre-left
- Centre
- Centre-right
- Right
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Cuba suffered a total disconnection of its national electricity system late Sunday night, leaving millions of people across the island in darkness. The state energy company, Union Electrica (UNE), and the Ministry of Energy and Mines reported that protocols to restore service were activated following the collapse at 10:43 p.m. local time. This event marks the sixth nationwide blackout of the year and the fourth in less than a month. The outage occurred only 24 hours after a massive failure affected the western half of the country, leaving approximately 4.5 million people without power. The persistent crisis has disrupted water supplies and cooling systems during the summer heat. Multiple sources attribute the instability to a combination of aging infrastructure, with some thermoelectric plants operating for over 40 years, and severe fuel shortages. These shortages are linked to a US oil blockade imposed in January by the Trump administration, which disrupted deliveries from previous suppliers like Venezuela and Mexico. A single Russian tanker authorized by Washington in March has since exhausted its reserves. Center leaning sources present the situation as a conflict between Cuban government accusations of US responsibility and US claims of internal economic mismanagement. Center right sources emphasize the specific technical failures of the grid and the scale of the fuel deficit. One center source adds further geopolitical context, noting that the US has redesignated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and intensified sanctions against state businesses.
How each side framed it
- Centre
- Framed the event as a clash between US sanctions and Cuban government mismanagement.
- Centre-right
- Focused on the technical failures of the energy mix and the specific impact of the fuel blockade.
Sources
- Centre Bloomberg: Cuba Suffers Fourth Nationwide Blackout in Less Than a Month
- Centre Deutsche Welle: Cuba suffers yet another nationwide blackout
- Centre-right El Tiempo: Cuba wakes up without power this Monday and faces its sixth national general blackout of the year amid constant supply cuts
- Centre Folha de S.Paulo: Cuba suffers new general blackout, state energy company reports
- Centre-right South China Morning Post: Cuba plunged into darkness again as power grid collapses
100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.