Cuba’s power grid failed and the entire nation plunged into darkness Friday, less than a day after the government stressed the need to paralyze the economy to save electricity in the face of major gasoline shortages and large-scale, regular outages. The electricity went out nationwide Friday morning after a failure at a thermoelectric power plant in Matanzas, east of Havana, Cuba’s Energy Ministry said on X. The blackout came less than a day after the prime minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, held a late-night television address with state officials to discuss the ongoing electricity crisis, which experts said was the worst the nation — long accustomed to food and electricity shortages — had ever experienced. For weeks, the country has lacked the fuel to run the power grid, which has left large parts of the nation without electricity for 15- to 20-hour stretches.

Source: The Times October 20, 2024 16:31 UTC