Second Blackout in 24 Hours Deepens Cuba's Crisis

Cuba's national power grid collapsed for the second time in less than 24 hours on Monday, deepening the island's energy crisis.

The outage occurred as electricity providers were gradually restoring power following a nationwide blackout on Sunday evening. State-owned utility Union Electrica (UNE) said adverse weather disrupted the transmission system during restoration efforts, forcing several power plants offline again.

By Monday evening, several generating units and substations around Havana had been restarted, but the situation remained unstable. The latest failure marked the fourth nationwide grid collapse in a matter of weeks.

The repeated outages have severely disrupted households, businesses and public services in a country already struggling with shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

Havana blames the crisis on long-standing US sanctions and restrictions on fuel supplies, while the United States says Cuba's state-run economy, aging infrastructure and years of underinvestment are primarily responsible.

(Reuters, MJA)