- Title: Cuba begins slowly restoring power after country-wide outage
- Date: 16th March 2025
- Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (MARCH 16, 2025) (REUTERS) PEOPLE CONNECTING POWER GENERATOR TO PROVIDE ELECTRICITY FOR RESTAURANT VARIOUS OF RESTAURANT OPERATING WITH POWER GENERATOR GARLAND WITH LIGHTS OFF / CUBAN FLAG WAVING IN THE BACKGROUND (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) RESTAURANT MANAGER, NICKY VERA, SAYING: "They say the system is slowly recovering. It's real, we have a colleague who just arr
- Embargoed:
- Keywords: BLACKOUT CUBA FAILURE GRID POWER
- Location: HAVANA, CUBA
- City: HAVANA, CUBA
- Country: Cuba
- Topics: South America / Central America,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA001924216032025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Pockets of Cuba's capital Havana saw the lights flicker back on though vast areas of the city and country continued without electricity on Sunday morning (March 16), after a nationwide grid collapse that knocked out power to 10 million people.
Havana's electric company said on social media that approximately 19% of its clients in the city had seen power restored, but gave no estimate for full recovery.
Cuba's energy and mines ministry said early on Sunday it had fired up its Felton power plant, one of the country's largest and a major benchmark for restoring power in the eastern provinces.
Whilst some businesses in Havana had to continue using generators on Sunday others were able to return to relative normality with their power restored.
Cuba's grid collapsed on Friday evening (March 14) after a transmission line at a substation in Havana shorted, beginning a chain reaction that completely shut down power generation across the island.
The country blames the mounting crisis on a Cold War-era U.S. trade embargo and fresh restrictions from U.S. President Donald Trump, who recently tightened sanctions on the communist-run government and vowed to restore a "tough" policy toward the long-time U.S. foe.
The government is pushing to develop large solar farms with help from China in a bid to reduce dependence on antiquated oil-fired generation.
(Production: Anett Rios, Mario Fuentes, Alien Fernandez, Nina Lopez) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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