Cuba suffers nationwide blackout affecting millions

Cuba has suffered a nationwide blackout after the country's national electricity grid collapsed.

The blackout in the country of some 10 million people was reported on Monday by the state-run Electric Union, which said the cause was under investigation.

Cuba's ministry of energy and mines reported it had activated protocols to restore electricity, while grid operator UNE said it was supplying some vital services, including hospitals and food production centres.

Fuel has been running out across Cuba since January, when US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island.

The US has called Cuba's government a national security threat and has said such sanctions are necessary to force a change in its government, a long-time aim of US policy toward Cuba.

For months, Cuba has suffered from hours-long and, more recently, days-long power outages.

The blackouts have been linked to its decrepit grid as well as the US-imposed oil blockade.

Nearly two-thirds of the country was already without power when the grid collapsed on Monday.

The Trump administration cut off fuel shipments from Venezuela to Cuba earlier this year and also pressured Mexico to halt shipments.

Washington has threatened to slap tariffs on any nation delivering oil to the island nation.

Read more:
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Despite the increasingly harsh conditions, during a recent visit to Cuba, Sky News' Yalda Hakim reported that defiance was the word she heard more than any other.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Hakim: "We are willing to fight to the very last drop of blood in order to defend our rights, our independence, our sovereignty and our achievements."

In June, Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay said he was "taken aback at how dramatically conditions have further disintegrated under Donald Trump's oil blockade in such a short space of time".

He reported the "spectre of social and political collapse under a strict US oil embargo that's been in place since January is very real".

(c) Sky News 2026: Cuba suffers nationwide blackout affecting millions