Millions left without power after major blackout hits Cuba's western region
Source: AP
By MILEXSY DURÁN and DÁNICA COTO
Updated 7:11 AM CST, March 5, 2026
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HAVANA (AP) — A blackout left millions of people without power in Havana and the rest of western Cuba on Wednesday in the latest outage on an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and a crumbling electric grid.
Government radio station Radio Rebelde quoted an energy official as saying that it could take at least 72 hours to restore operations at one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric power plants, where a shutdown sparked the outage.
The government’s electric utility said on social platform X that the outage affected people from the western town of Pinar del Rio to the central town of Camaguey.
Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy wrote on X late Wednesday that the government was powering critical infrastructure in the affected region as two power plants came online. Such infrastructure includes hospitals and medical clinics.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/cuba-blackout-power-outage-havana-western-island-f7d1a4927bbcefb774ccf34dbbc9a794