Cuba's national electricity grid collapsed late Sunday, plunging the entire island into a nationwide blackout. State utility UNE announced the failure on social media, confirming a complete system shutdown that cut power to roughly 10 million residents, including those in Havana.
UNE called it a "total disconnection" of the national electricity system. It is the latest in a series of grid failures that have grown more frequent and disruptive across the country.
The blackouts knock out water pumping, refrigeration and communications for hours or days at a stretch. Public health facilities and food storage bear the worst of it, compounding hardship for a population already under severe economic strain.
Government officials have not identified the cause of Sunday's collapse. The Cuban government controls the grid entirely; its repeated failures reflect a deepening infrastructure deficit the state has not moved to fix.
