HAVANA (AP) 鈥� An islandwide blackout struck on Friday for the as the nation of nearly 10 million people grapples with a crumbling power grid and fuel shortages stemming from a U.S. energy blockade.
While total blackouts have become increasingly common in the Caribbean country, it鈥檚 unusual for back-to-back ones to hit just days apart. Cuba鈥檚 Electric Union confirmed the outage on X.
Officials had also confirmed the first total power outage, which happened on Monday, although it wasn’t clear what caused it. Authorities at the time said an investigation was underway.
Fuel has been running out across Cuba since January, when U.S. President Donald Trump on any country that sells or provides oil to the island, deepening the island鈥檚 ongoing economic and financial crisis. Public transportation has largely been halted, and officials have canceled tens of thousands of surgeries.
Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it needs, while the 730,000 barrels of oil in late March ran out by the end of April. The government also has been rationing power with intentional outages that can stretch to more than 24 consecutive hours.
A blackout in mid-May , while a blackout in mid-March .
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