Power was restored in Cuba early Monday after a massive outage caused by a malfunction in a high voltage power line cast much of the country into darkness for hours.
Power was restored in
Cuba
early
Monday after a massive outage caused by a malfunction in a high voltage power
line cast much of the country into darkness for hours.
The blackout, which began at 10:
08
p.m.
local time (0008 GMT Monday), hit 10 of
Cuba
's 15
provinces, including
Havana
. Six
provinces went totally dark for three hours, the state-run Electric Union
company said.
It said it was caused by a malfunction on a high-voltage line between the
cities of Ciego de Avila and
Santa Clara
,
disrupting service from the eastern
province
of
Camaguey
to
Pinar del
Rio
at the western end of
Cuba
.
Residents said Pinar del
Rio
,
Artemisa,
Havana
,
Mayabeque,
Matanzas
and
Cienfuegos
were
left completely without electricity.
The cause of the malfunction was under investigation, the company said.
The situation in the capital -- where more than two million of
Cuba
's 11
million people reside -- remained calm, although the police presence on some
streets had been noticeably beefed up.
Many people in Havana left their homes to spend the night in the open because
they could not use fans or air conditioning, and the heat inside -- about 30
degrees Celsius (near 90 degrees F) -- quickly became unbearable.
After three hours, electricity began to return to some areas of
Havana
but
others remained in the dark.
In
Cienfuegos
, the
blackout lasted about an hour, residents said.
While rolling blackouts to save energy are not unusual in cash-strapped
Cuba
, a
broad failure of the power grid like this is rare.
Energy shortages are the Achilles heel of Communist-run
Cuba
's
economy, which for more than a decade has been propped up by subsidized oil
from ally
Venezuela
.
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