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

People cross a street during a blackout in Havana, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

HAVANA — 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 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 already is underway to fix a pipe that also is damaged, officials added.

Sonia Vazquez, 61, said the blackout didn’t stop her from selling coffee to passersby daily, saying she prepared it with gas at 5 a.m. under a rechargeable lamp.

“I didn’t sleep last night. Too many mosquitoes,” said Vazquez.

Meanwhile, 57-year-old cafe owner Jose 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 aging 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, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that he would impose tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba.

On Thursday, Trump suggested a deal may be imminent with Cuba but that he’s focusing on Iran in the meantime.

Referring to a co-owner of Inter Miami being originally from Cuba, Trump said, “You’re gonna go back” and added, “That’s going to be a great day, right?”

Without providing details, Trump said, “We’re going to celebrate that separately. I just want to wait a couple of weeks. I want him to wait a couple of weeks. But we’ll be together again soon, I suspect, celebrating what’s going on in Cuba.”

He added of the island’s government, “They want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea.”

Then, referring to Marco Rubio, the president said the secretary of state wants to work on Cuba but is cautious to do so during the war in Iran.

“You’re next one’s going to be -- we want to do that special -- Cuba,” Trump said. “He’s waiting. But he says, “Let’s get this one finished first.’ We could do them all at the same time. But bad things happen. If you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast, bad things happen.”

Trump didn’t clarify his meaning, but the comments followed his from last week, when he raised that the prospect of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba might be possible without elaborating.

Wednesday’s outage is the second one to hit western Cuba in three months. The outage in early December lasted nearly 12 hours.

Some of Cuba’s thermoelectric plants have been operating for more than three decades and receive little maintenance because of high costs. U.S. sanctions also have prevented the government from buying new equipment and specialized parts, officials say.

By Milexsy Durán.

Dánica Coto contributed to this report from San José, Costa Rica.