Cuba suffers second nationwide blackout in four days

Cuba has suffered a second nationwide blackout in just four days, the Energy Ministry said on Friday, July 10, underscoring the severity of the country’s ongoing energy crisis.

The ministry, quoted by dpa, said emergency protocols had been activated to restore power, with priority given to essential services such as hospitals. The outage comes as the Caribbean island grapples with deteriorating infrastructure and a prolonged oil shortage, which officials attribute to a U.S. embargo.

“The collapse occurred in the midst of a critical energy crisis from which the country is already suffering severely,” Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s Communist Party, wrote on X.

The state electricity company, UNE, did not immediately provide details on the cause of the latest outage.

The Cuban government has repeatedly blamed U.S. sanctions for the persistent disruptions to the power supply. In January, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that countries exporting oil to Cuba could face punitive tariffs, a move that significantly reduced external fuel shipments.

As a result, Cuba has been forced to rely on limited domestic resources, covering only part of its oil demand. Washington has said its measures are intended to pressure Havana into economic and political reforms.

By Tamilla Hasanova