This time the breakdown is general. Cuba, which has been suffering from repeated electricity outages for several months, has been in complete darkness since Friday afternoon, October 18. According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the blackout began on Thursday afternoon, with the cessation of electricity production at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the largest on the island, located in the province of Matanzas, two hours from Havana. This plant has experienced several major incidents in recent years that have harmed its operations.
In August 2022, a gigantic fire that affected four tanks of the largest oil deposit on the island in Matanzas for five days, which supplied the power plant, caused 16 deaths. On June 14, a power plant tank containing 10,000 m3 of crude oil had also burned. Since then, the thermoelectric plant had never recovered its production capacity while the pipelines and reservoirs could not be put back into service.
In a speech broadcast on national television on Thursday night, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero assured that “Everything possible will be done to ensure that service is quickly restored to the population.” “With this objective, he said, All non-essential public services are suspended.” Schools, non-food industries and ministries ceased operations and only hospitals continued to receive electricity.
“There is no electricity but, above all, there is no water in the houses because all the pumping systems, in the buildings and from the aqueducts, are interrupted”explains an Italian tourist, contacted by WhatsApp, who was staying in a private person’s house. “Starting Friday, [les touristes ont] transferred to the most luxurious hotels in Havana that have generators, she specifies. But all restaurants and shops are closed. In short, it is a dead city in terms of trade. »
“Fed up”
Since Friday, the National Electricity Company (UNE) announced on its Facebook page that it is using “microsystems appurtenances to relaunch the national electro-energy system”, but without specifying the nature or scope of these systems. On Saturday he claimed to have repaired the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant and showed images of President Miguel Díaz-Canel going there to supervise the recovery of the network. But the comments below these posts expressed the “fed up” residents: many netizens complained that they had “One more time” Lost food stored in freezers.
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