Cuba’s power grid collapses again, triggering third blackout in 10 days

Cuba's national power grid collapsed on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, plunging the island into its third nationwide blackout in less than ten days and leaving approximately 10 million people without electricity. The outage began around 11am local time when the entire grid went offline, according to the state-run electricity company UNE. The blackout comes amid Cuba's worst economic crisis in decades, worsened by a US oil blockade imposed in January after the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The repeated blackouts have fueled growing frustration, with scattered protests breaking out in Havana a week earlier.