The country’s national electric grid went down on Monday, leaving almost 10 million Cubans without electricity in a blackout that swept the entire nation. Despite efforts made by the national electric company, UNE, to bring back some electricity to essential services such as hospitals and agriculture, it managed to restore power for just one percent of the energy requirement of the capital, Havana, by the afternoon. Reasons for the complete collapse of the system remain unknown.
This comes at a time when the nation has been suffering from serious energy, fuel, and medicine shortages. Citizens of the country had been struggling under exhausting power blackouts lasting for several days in the sweltering heat of the Caribbean summer. The energy crisis in the nation has worsened greatly owing to poor infrastructure and an increased embargo on oil by the U.S. government against Cuba. The government of US president Donald Trump stopped shipments of oil to Cuba from Venezuela and put pressure on Mexico to stop providing oil to the country using sanctions as leverage for regime change.