Cuba plunged into darkness

It has been announced that approximately 10 million people in the South American country of Cuba were left without electricity on Friday, October 18, due to a failure at a main power plant.

In a post regarding the issue on the Cuban Ministry of Energy's social media account, it was stated that a failure occurred in the grid of the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant in Matanzas at 11:00 local time yesterday.

Life came to a standstill due to the outage, leaving approximately 10 million people without power. Authorities stated that it is unknown when the failure will be resolved.

Cuban President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez also announced on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) that work would continue 'non-stop' until the power outage is resolved.

Grid operator UNE issued a statement yesterday evening, noting that they hoped at least five of the fuel-powered power plants would resume operations during the night, which would allow electricity to be restored to a large part of the country.

Due to the outage, the government had closed schools and some industrial facilities early yesterday, and many civil servants were sent home. Instructions were also given to suspend entertainment and cultural activities, including nightclubs.

Brazilian tourist Carlos Roberto Julio told the Reuters news agency, “We went to a restaurant; there was nothing to eat because there was no electricity. Now we don't have internet either.” Explaining that he had recently arrived in the capital, Havana, Julio added, “We have already had a lot of problems in the last two days.”

While Cuban authorities stated that electricity began to be restored on Friday evening, residents living in the capital, Havana, reported that they saw 'the lights starting to flicker back on' around midnight in some areas, including those housing major hospitals.