Cuba fights to come back from a nationwide blackout

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(22 Oct 2024) • RESTRICTION SUMMARY: • • ASSOCIATED PRESS • Cuba, Havana - 22 October 2024 • 1. SOUNDBITE (English) Cristiana Mesquita, Associated Press: • While life in Cuba slowly goes back to normal after Friday’s massive power collapse that left the whole island in the dark, it is important to explain what normal is in a country with such a deficient energy generation and distribution. Throughout this year Cuba has been struggling just to keep the lights on. Electricity is rationed some hours of the day in a system of rotation among provinces and neighborhoods as is the case of the capital Havana. So, for over a year, every home in Havana has experienced at least a few hours a day without electricity some days of the week. In the countryside, the situation is even worse with some smaller towns experience as much as 8 hours a day without electricity or sometimes none at all. The Cuban government blames the increase of demand for the problems and, indeed more Cubans have refrigerators and air conditioning and there has been an expansion of private businesses since they were made legal in 2021 - but the core of the problem lies on the short supply of fuel and spare parts to fix the ancient thermo-electric plants. • With a worsening economic crisis that the country is going through and no signs of these problems being resolved, the major question is really how long before the lights go out again? • ++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++ • STORYLINE: • Cuba's capital was partially illuminated on Tuesday after a large-scale blackout generated a handful of protests and a stern government warning that any unrest would be punished. • • The prolonged nationwide blackout that followed a massive outage Thursday night was part of countrywide energy problems that led to the largest protests in Cuba in almost 30 years, in July 2021. Those were followed by smaller local protests in October 2022 and March 2024. • • Power remains relatively cheap but increasingly unavailable. The Cuban government on state television Monday night said that it’s producing 1300 megawatts when peak demand can hit 3 gigawatts. Authorities said by Monday afternoon that about 80 percent of Havana had intermittent power but people remained fearful. • • Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said in a news conference he hoped that more reliable electricity would be restored by Tuesday morning but classes remained closed through at least Thursday. • • Many of Havana's 2 million people resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before their food went bad in refrigerators. People lined up to buy subsidized food and few gas stations were open. • • The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday was the latest problem with energy distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated among different regions at different times. • • The blackout was considered to be Cuba’s worst since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged power installations. It took days for the government to fix them. • • AP Video shot by Ariel Fernandez • • =========================================================== • • Clients are reminded to adhere to all listed restrictions and to check the terms of their licence agreements. For further assistance, please contact the AP Archive on: Tel +44(0)2074827482 Email: [email protected]. • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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