For the third time in a week, most of Cuba was transported back to the 19th century after a major blackout affected the central and eastern part of the island. Nearly half the island’s population was left in the dark in what has become a common occurrence in communist Cuba.
Cuba on Tuesday suffered its third major blackout in little more than a week, leaving a vast swath of the center and east of the island without power, energy officials said on state-run TV.
Cuba´s mid-day television news broadcast said “it was investigating the causes of the {electrical failure}” and that the country´s state-run electrical company had begun work to restore power.
The blackout Tuesday spanned 430 miles (700 km) from Cienfuegos province in south-central Cuba to Guantanamo, on the far southeastern tip, leaving more than half of the country’s population of 11 million without power. Scattered blackouts were also reported in the capital Havana.
The mass electrical outage – the third in a week – left many in Cuba scratching their heads and concerned about what the energy-intensive summer might bring, when many residents crank up their air conditioning to stay cool in the Caribbean heat.
Blackouts in communist-run Cuba – a country already suffering from severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine – touch a political nerve and are widely seen as the tipping point that led to anti-government protests in July 2021, the largest since former President Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
As if food and medicine shortages, poverty, and oppression were not enough, constant and extended blackouts have been added as a reminder of the socialist revolution’s glorious triumphs.
More like a reminder that Cuba is a third-world shithole. Gracias, Fidel.