14ymedio, Havana, May 8, 2024 — There was no need for the Electric Union of Cuba (UNE) to say this Wednesday, in its usual forecast, that yesterday “the service was affected due to a deficit of generation capacity for 24 hours.” The inhabitants of a third of the Island were able to feel it in their skin. For the second consecutive day, there were simultaneous blackouts in 30% of the country, the worst figure in a month and a half.
“They’re bleeding us dry. We’re being eaten up by the blackouts, and last night I couldn’t even take a bath,” laments Idelia, a resident of San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa. There, the blackout scheduled from 3:00 in the afternoon to 8:00 at night ended up lasting until 3:30 in the morning. “More than 12 hours without electricity, and in this heat who can stand that? My heart is full of sorrow.”
The power outages have even reached José Martí International Airport in Havana. In terminal 3, this Tuesday, tourists could be seen trying to relieve their hot flashes with fans or by waving brochures in front of their sweaty faces.
“They’re bleeding us dry. We’re being eaten up by the blackouts, and last night I couldn’t even take a bath”
Over a loudspeaker, a female voice warned that the air conditioning was turned off “for maintenance,” but an airport employee told 14ymedio that the real reason is a “directive” coming “from above” to save electricity: “We turn it off about three days a week.” Half of the escalators were also stopped, as was one of the internal elevators.
In the capital, many neighborhoods also suffered power outages, even the areas that suffer them the least often, such as El
