Cuba hit by third nationwide blackout in March amid power crisis

Cuba's power grid collapsed on Saturday, leaving the country without electricity for the third time in March, according to the Cuban Electric Union and the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

The union announced a total blackout across the island without initially providing a cause. The ministry later attributed the outage to an unexpected failure of a generating unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province. "From that moment, a cascading effect occurred in the machines that were online," the ministry said in a report.

By early Sunday, restoration efforts had begun. Some 72,000 customers in Havana, including five hospitals, had electricity restored, according to the state-run Electric Union and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. However, this represented only a fraction of Havana's approximately 2 million residents. In Havana and provinces including western Matanzas and eastern Holguín, authorities established local power microsystems to supply vital centers, hospitals, and water systems. Residents in some areas of the capital reported that power returned during early morning hours.

The latest collapse follows a blackout that struck the island less than a week earlier, on March 16. Cuba is currently facing an unprecedented energy crisis. The country's aging electrical infrastructure has drastically eroded in recent years, with power outages—whether nationwide or regional—becoming relatively common over the past two years due to breakdowns in the aging grid.

The power failures occur against the backdrop of a U.S.-imposed oil blockade affecting the island. Authorities said they were working to restore power across the country.