Massive blackout hits Cuba, prompting government to shutter schools and workplaces
A massive outage left millions of Cubans without power and prompted the government Friday to implement emergency measures to slash demand.
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Cuba's electrical grid went offline Friday after one of the island's major power plants failed, the energy ministry said.
The massive outage left millions of Cubans without power and prompted the government to implement emergency measures to slash demand, including suspending classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling nonessential services.
The government announced that one of the nation's main thermoelectric plants, La Antonio Guiteras, had ceased operations at about 11 a.m. local time, with authorities saying it was only offline temporarily.
Cuban officials said that the blackout, which started late Thursday, saw 1.64 gigawatts go offline during peak hours in the early evening, about half the total demand at the time.
The government was still working to restore service by Friday afternoon. "From the highest levels of the state we are working to solve this energy contingency as soon as possible," Prime Minister Manuel Marrero posted on social media. "We will not rest until service is restored."
Wondering what's really going on down there. On the news they said Cuba was having issues getting fuel for their power plants, which lead to the grid failing...
