Cuba has restored its national power grid and restarted its largest oil-fired power plant, bringing an end to a nationwide blackout that lasted more than 29 hours, energy officials said.
The outage came amid a United States effort to restrict fuel supplies to the island.
The Caribbean nation of about 10 million people was plunged into darkness overnight, but electricity was fully restored by 6:11 p.m.
(22:11 GMT) on Tuesday.
However, officials warned that power shortages could continue due to limited electricity generation capacity.
In addition to cutting off oil supplies, US President Donald Trump has intensified his rhetoric against Cuba, saying he could do “anything” he wanted with the country.
A US State Department official blamed the Cuban government for the blackout, describing the outages as a result of “incompetence” within the system.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel rejected the criticism, accusing Washington of issuing near-daily threats against the country.
“They intend to take over the nation, its resources, its properties, and even the economy they are trying to suffocate to force us to surrender,” Díaz-Canel said on social media shortly after power was restored.
Authorities have not yet confirmed the exact cause of Monday’s grid collapse — the first nationwide blackout since the US cut off key oil supplies and threatened penalties against countries exporting fuel to Cuba.
By midday Tuesday, technicians had successfully restarted the Antonio Guiteras power plant, a decades-old facility that plays a crucial role in supporting the country’s electricity grid.
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