Cuban officials work to restore power following blackout

HAVANA (NBC, KYMA) - Cuban officials are restoring power to the island nation after the country's national electric grid collapsed Monday.

The outage is the latest blow to Cuba that is already suffering from severe energy, fuel and medicine shortages.

Grid operator Une said it was providing electricity to some vital services, including hospitals and food production centers, but by late Monday afternoon, service was available to only 1% of Havana.

Cuba has for months suffered from hours-long and, more recently, days-long power outages linked in part to a decrepit grid and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade that has cut off the island's fuel supply.

Officials have not yet said what caused the grid to collapse.

Nearly two-thirds of the country was already without power when the grid collapsed Monday, so many of the island's residents, largely without communications and accustomed to the lack of electricity, hardly registered the difference.

Monday's nationwide blackout is the eighth since October 2025, and the third this year.

The Trump Administration cut off fuel shipments from Venezuela and Mexico to Cuba earlier this year, and has threatened to slap tariffs on any nation delivering oil to Cuba.

The U.S. has called Cuba's government a national security threat and says such sanctions are necessary to force a change in the island's government.