Cuba's Power Grid Fails, Leaving Millions Without Power

This was not a one-off breakdown. Cuba's electricity network is old and falling apart, and the fuel needed to run it is increasingly hard to find. The island relies heavily on imported oil, and supplies have become much tighter this year. News organisations disagree on the count: the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) called Friday's blackout at least the sixth of 2026, while Fox News said the seventh. The US embassy has described Cuba's grid as "increasingly unstable". Even when there is no national failure, Cubans live with planned daily power cuts, and the embassy said extra outages were happening "more frequently and for longer periods".

The blackouts have changed everyday life. Food and medicine are harder to get, hospitals cannot work normally, and schools and government offices often close. "Lately, it's becoming a habit," Havana resident Frank Lorenzo told the news agency Reuters. Schoolteacher Lidia Fernandez, 36, said there was no water, no gas for cooking and no electricity. Francisco Rodriguez, 78, had already been without power for 28 hours and expected several more dark days. The repeated failures have led to rare protests, which are illegal without permission.