Cuba edges toward breakdown as power cuts and US meddling push society to brink

Tensions have increased in Cuba as the US blockade continues. Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/AP Photo View image in fullscreen Tensions have increased in Cuba as the US blockade continues. Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/AP Photo Cuba edges toward breakdown as power cuts and US meddling push society to brink As Cuba swelters under six-month oil blockade imposed by US, tempers are fraying and unrest is growing W hen Cuba’s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days on Tuesday, a collective groan spreads across its cities and people wonder, again, whether the island’s antiquated electricity system may soon become unrecoverable. The 777-mile Caribbean island of 9.5 million people has been sweltering under a six-month-long oil blockade imposed by the US, part of a pressure campaign to bring down its communist government. But the parlous state of Cuba’s infrastructure goes far further back. “The backbone of the system is still the big power plants,’ said Jorge Piñon, a senior energy researcher at the University of Texas. “And they’re old, broken and tired.” View image in fullscreen Blackouts have become a regular part of life in Cuba. Photograph: Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty With summer temperatures now in the mid-30s and humidity at 80%, tempers on the street have begun to break. For many, the nationwide collapses mesh seamlessly with already withering local blackouts. Where once salsa filled the streets, now the drumming of pots and pans has become the country’s soundtrack, cacerolazos that represent the shared misery of no sleep, ruined food and fading hopes of reprieve. ‘Living like this is agony’: Cuba suffers third nationwide blackout in six months Read more Electricity returns only sporadically. “An hour isn’t enough time to run the pump to get water or to charge phones,” Alberto, a middle-aged man, yelled through a cacophony of pans in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood last week. “People want the government to act right now.” The government, however, says it has few options. “We’ve said it before, there is a total absence of fuel,” said Vicente de la O Levy, the minister of energy. “And we do not have access to spare parts for our thermoelectric units.” Ever since 3 January, when the US military abducted President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela , Donald Trump has promised Cuba will fall. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he told reporters at the White House in March. In its efforts to achieve this, Washington has used sanctions to destroy Cuba’s industries. Foreign companies doing business on the island, from hotel operators, airlines, miners and shipping companies, have been driven out (or in cases such as the Canadian nickel miner Sherritt, have drawn up plans to stay in by selling its interests to Ray Washburne, a former adviser to Trump). “We have seven containers in Kingston and another 40 in China, but we have no idea when, or if, they will arrive,” said an electric car importer. In May, a court i