A BLACKOUT left millions of people without power in Havana and the rest of western Cuba on Wednesday in the latest outage on an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves.

Government radio station Radio Rebelde quoted an energy official as saying that it could take at least 72 hours to restore operations at one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric power plants, where a shutdown sparked the outage.

The government’s electric utility said on social media that the outage affected people from the western town of Pinar del Rio to the central town of Camaguey.

Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy wrote on X late Wednesday that the government was powering critical infrastructure in the affected region as two power plants came online. Such infrastructure includes hospitals and medical clinics.

“We are working to restore the national electric system amid a complex energy situation,” he wrote earlier on X.

By late afternoon, the government said crews had restored power to 2.5 per cent of Havana, or some 21,100 customers, noting that efforts were gradual and tied to what the system’s conditions would allow. 

“We trust in the experience and effort of the electrical workers to overcome this situation in the shortest possible time,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz wrote on X.

Local media reported that the outage was caused by a shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant east of Havana following a leak in its boiler.

Cuba is also struggling with dwindling oil reserves after the United States attacked Venezuela in early January, which halted critical petroleum shipments. Later that month, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any country that would sell or supply Cuba with oil.

Prior to the attack on Venezuela, the island was already struggling because of the decades-old illegal US-imposed blockade.