Electricity was cut off in Cuba and it seems to be suffering from a nationwide power outage after one of the power generation stations unexpectedly went offline on Friday morning.
In a post on website X, the Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines said that the Antonio Guiteras Thermal Power Station stopped working around 11 a.m. local time on Friday.
Lazaro Guerra, director of the Cuban Ministry of Energy, said, according to state-owned Cuban media: “There is no specific time for full recovery, but efforts are being made to restore the electrical system as soon as possible.”
On the previous day, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and President Miguel Diaz Canel, along with other senior government officials, went to national television and radio stations to clarify that fuel shortages were causing an energy emergency in the country.
During their speech, government officials issued instructions for Cubans to stop non-essential work activities and to shut down devices that consume a lot of electricity during peak hours, such as refrigerators and ovens. School was also canceled until at least Monday.
Officials said that fuel ships destined for Cuba were delayed due to weather conditions in the region, contributing to the energy crisis, but they acknowledged that the country’s infrastructure is in urgent need of work and updating.
This is a developing story.
Correction 5:25 PM: An earlier version of this post mentioned a nuclear power station failure. We apologize for this error.
