By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Cuba has begun to restore power after a partial collapse of its electrical grid on Wednesday that left capital Havana and much of western Cuba in the dark, the latest incident in an energy crisis that has left millions suffering from prolonged blackouts for months.
Top energy official Lazaro Guerra said a main transmission line connecting Havana with the country’s largest power plant in Matanzas failed around 5 a.m. (1000 GMT), but that workers had begun restoring power by mid-morning.
“We already have a certain level of electricity in Havana and also in the province of Mayabeque,” Guerra said. “We will continue to move forward as we increase generation capacity.”
At least four western provinces, from Pinar del Rio to Mayabeque, lost power, officials said.
Havana’s ocean-front skyline was dark before sunrise, with only scattered hotels and hospitals lit with generators. Cell phone service was intermittent, and street and stop lights shut off.
DAILY BLACKOUTS EVEN BEFORE THE LATEST INCIDENT
Even before Wednesday’s incident, residents were experiencing daily blackouts extending for 20 hours or more. Havana, once protected from the brunt of outages, now regularly faces 10 hours or more without electricity each day.
The island’s oil-fired power plants, already obsolete and struggling to keep the lights on, experienced a full crisis last year as oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico dwindled.
Cuba’s grid has collapsed several times since, with the government blaming fuel shortages, decrepit infrastructure and damage from Hurricane Melissa for worsening power outages.
U.S. sanctions and a deep economic crisis have for years made it impossible for the government to buy enough fuel, forcing a dependence on allies.
Crude and fuel imports in the first 10 months fell more than a third from a year ago as allies Mexico and Venezuela slashed supplies, according to shipping data and documents seen by Reuters.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood, additional reporting by Nelson Acosta, Editing by Ed Osmond and Bernadette Baum)
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