Alexey Ríos García woke up on Havana’s Malecón instead of in his bed after another Cuba electrical grid failure left much of Cuba without electricity on Monday. He had slept on the seawall to escape the summer heat during the sixth islandwide blackout since January.
The 30-year-old construction worker said, “Things are only getting worse. Tomorrow it'll collapse again... and we'll be back to sleeping on the Malecón.” On Sunday, Havana reached 93 degrees Fahrenheit, or 34 Celsius, and felt like 106 F with 80% humidity, making the open air one of the few places with any relief.
Havana’s Malecón
Elaine Delis Ramos, a physical education teacher, also slept on the boardwalk with loved ones on a thick blanket in search of a breeze. Cubans in Havana turned the Malecón into an overnight refuge because rolling blackouts now last more than 20 hours a day, and public transportation in Havana has effectively collapsed because of little fuel.
Cuba's state-run energy company said on Monday that workers were trying to restore power, but much of Cuba still had no electricity. The latest total outage followed sweeping blackouts across western Cuba the day before, leaving people to improvise at night and plan the day around whether power would hold.
Cuba’s repeated grid collapses
The outage did not come out of nowhere. Energy authorities reported two nationwide grid collapses in March and three in July, a pattern that has turned electricity loss into a recurring part of daily life. Cuba the country has faced repeated breakdowns as oil shortages and aging infrastructure have strained the system.
Hospitals have sought to install solar panels to keep the lights on, a sign that the outage has moved beyond discomfort and into basic service protection. The practical question for families on Havana’s coast is not whether another blackout will come, but how long the current restoration will hold before demand and supply again pull the grid apart.
Monday and the power restore
Monday’s restoration effort was still underway as residents in Havana weighed sleep, heat, and the chance of another collapse. For anyone with food to protect, a commute to make, or a clinic visit to plan, the immediate reality is simple: power has not yet returned across much of Cuba, and the city’s night-time refuge remains the Malecón.
