Cuba’s electrical grid suffers partial collapse, Havana without power

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By Dave Sherwood

HAVANA, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Cuba’s electrical grid suffered a partial collapse early on Wednesday, leaving the capital Havana and much of western Cuba in the dark, according to local media and eyewitness reports.

State-run media reporter Lazaro Manuel Alonso confirmed that four of the country’s westernmost provinces, from Pinar del Rio to Mayabeque, were without power.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the grid failure.

Havana’s skyline was largely dark before sunrise, with only hospitals and some tourist hotels still illuminated early on Wednesday, a Reuters witness observed.

Cuba’s oil-fired power plants, already obsolete and struggling to keep the lights on, experienced a full crisis last year as oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico dwindled.

Cuba’s grid has collapsed, partially or entirely, several times since.

Many across the Caribbean island nation are experiencing daily blackouts that extend 20 hours or more. Even Havana residents, once protected from the brunt of the outages, now regularly face 10 hours or more every day without electricity.

Cuba’s government blames fuel shortages, decrepit infrastructure and damage from Hurricane Melissa for worsening power outages.

U.S. sanctions and a deep economic crisis have for years made it impossible for the government to buy enough fuel, forcing a growing dependence on allies and complicating Cuba’s efforts to keep the lights on.

But the island’s imports of crude and fuel in the first 10 months of 2025 fell more than a third compared with the same period in 2024 as key allies Mexico and Venezuela slashed supplies, according to shipping data and documents seen by Reuters.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood, Editing by Louise Heavens and Ed Osmond)