Cuba grid collapse leaves millions without power; 14 detained after unrest

Cuba’s national grid collapsed, the country’s grid operator said, leaving about 10 million people without electricity as officials reported arrests after protesters stormed a Communist Party office.

The grid operator said the national electric system had collapsed, plunging much of the island into blackout. The scale of the outage was not immediately detailed beyond an estimate of around 10 million people without power.

The island of 9.6 million inhabitants, under a U.S. trade embargo since 1962, has for years faced extended power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and food.

The report said Cuba has also been cut off from critical oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico under the threat of U.S. tariffs. It linked the power crisis to what it described as a U.S.-imposed oil blockade. Details were not immediately available and could not be independently verified.

At least 14 people were detained after protesters stormed a provincial office of the Cuban Communist Party over the weekend, a local official said. The state-run newspaper Invasor had initially reported five arrests in what it called an incident of vandalism in the town of Morón, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Havana. Regional party chief Julio Heriberto Gómez later told the paper that 14 people had been arrested after rocks were thrown at the office and furniture was seized and set on fire.

Gómez alleged:

Once again they used a group of delinquents who do not represent the people of Moron

After the incident, President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged public frustration in a post on X.

the discontent our people feel because of the prolonged blackouts

He also warned against unrest, saying violence would

never be comprehensible, justified or admitted.

Donald Trump, commenting as the island faced the blackout, said:

Whether I free it, take it – think I could do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth,

They’re a very weakened nation right now.

The report attributed the oil blockade to Trump’s administration. Further information on restoration of power and fuel supplies was not immediately available.