Havana Power Outage: Latest Restoration Update

The majority of Havana has had their power resorted, almost two days after an outage swept the country, affecting 10 million people.

According to Reuters, the country’s national grid has been reconnected and two thirds in Havana of residents have had their power restored. That number is expected to grow overnight and into Monday morning.

On Friday March 14, a transmission line at a substation in Havana shorted, starting a chain reaction of power loss across the island that wiped out power across the country. The outages caused restaurants and businesses to shut down and affected basic infrastructure such as street light and stop lights in Havana, a major tourist destination.

This is the fourth time since October 24 Cuba has such paralyzing power loss. The country is said to be blaming the outages on Cold War era trade embargoes which have been further strained by recent updated sanctions in place by the US.