Cuba's national power grid collapsed again on Saturday - for the second time in a week, amid a US-imposed oil blockade on the island, Cuban state-owned electricity company “Union Electrica“ (UNE) announced, Reuters reported.
“A complete outage of the national power system occurred at 18:32 local time (00:32 Bulgarian time). We will continue to provide up-to-date information,” the network operator said in a social media post.
This is the third major power outage in Cuba this month, after most of the network collapsed on March 4 after a major thermal power plant failed.
Cuba’s power grid also partially went out on Monday, March 16, for unknown reasons.
Cuba has faced a series of large-scale power outages in recent years.
US President Donald Trump imposed an oil embargo on the Caribbean island after Washington ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, removing him from Venezuela in a military operation to stand trial in New York on drug trafficking charges.
Trump cut off Venezuelan energy exports to Cuba and threatened tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
Cuba has repeatedly cited the US trade embargo as the cause of its economic failures, including frequent power outages in the country.