Cuba plunged into darkness: Nationwide power outage hits ten million people

A nationwide power grid outage hit Cuba around midday today, the local operator said. Around ten million people on the Caribbean island were left without electricity.

Cuba has been struggling for months with power cuts lasting several hours—and, more recently, several days. These are partly linked to the dilapidated power grid and also to a US oil blockade that has cut the island off from fuel supplies, Reuters reported.

"The national electricity grid has suffered a complete outage. The causes are being investigated," Cuba's power grid operator Unión Eléctrica said on X.

US President Donald Trump ordered Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba to be halted in January after the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The White House chief then signed an executive order threatening tariffs against any country that supplied oil to Cuba, which Washington described as an "extraordinary threat". This also deterred Mexico, another key supplier.

The 730,000 barrels of oil delivered to Cuba by a Russian tanker in late March had run out by late April, the AP reported.

The island nation is facing one of its worst economic crises in decades. Due to a shortage of oil, it has had to introduce a series of restrictive measures and significantly scale back basic services.