Crews in Cuba rush to repair damaged power plant to ease blackout

Crews worked overnight to repair a broken boiler at one of Cubas largest thermoelectric plants, but officials have warned that it could take three to four days for power to be fully restored.

Swaths of Cuba remained without power on Thursday, nearly a day after a huge blackout hit the western part of the island in the latest outage blamed on a fragile electric grid and a lack of fuel. Crews worked overnight to repair a broken boiler at one of Cuba's largest thermoelectric plants, but officials have warned that it could take three to four days for power to be fully restored. State media reported that nearly 660,000 customers in Havana, or 77 per cent, had power, as well as 43 hospitals and 10 water supply stations. However, officials warned of low power generation and said some circuits that crews had reconnected were kicked offline again. Millions still remained without power, including Miguel Leyva, 65, who lives with his mother and brother, both of whom are ill. ''I have no words to describe what I'm going through: the heat, the mosquitoes and no electricity. The food could spoil,'' he said. ''I'm aware of all the problems that exist, but listen, it's been more than 24 hours now.'' Cuba's Ministry of Energy and Mines wrote on X that the electrical system is operating ''in a limited capacity, prioritizing basic services, primarily health and water supply.'' State media reported that two power plants are offline because of a lack of petroleum. Government officials said on Wednesday afternoon that crews have located the crack in the boiler drum that led to the outage. They said it will take 12 hours to cool that area so crews can enter the furnace and start repairing it. Work is already underway to fix a pipe that is also damaged, officials added. Sonia Vázquez, 61, said the blackout didn't stop her from selling coffee to passersby daily, saying she prepared it with gas at 5 am under a rechargeable lamp. ''I didn't sleep last night. Too many mosquitoes,'' said Vázquez, who lives with her grandson. Meanwhile, 57-year-old cafe owner José Ignacio Dorta said that some of his frozen food has spoiled. ''We've looked for ways to prevent further spoilage. We're working on it. We hope nothing else will spoil,'' he said. Cuba has long struggled with an ageing electric grid and intermittent fuel supplies, but the crisis has deepened in recent months. Key oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the United States attacked the South American country in early January. Then, later that month, US President Donald Trump warned that he would impose tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba. Last month, Cuba's government implemented austere fuel-saving measures and warned that jet fuel wouldn't be available at nine airports until mid-March. Wednesday's outage is the second one to hit western Cuba in three months. The outage in early December lasted nearly 12 hours. Officials said that a fault in a transmission line linking two power plants caused an overload and led to the collapse of the energy system's western sector. Some of Cuba's thermoelectric plants have been operating for more than three decades and receive little maintenance because of high costs. US sanctions have also prevented the government from buying new equipment and specialised parts, officials say.

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