Havana before and after the second collapse of the National Electric System

The second collapse of the National Electric System that occurred in the dawn of this Saturday was captured in photos by the Cuban journalist and director of the independent media 14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez.

In a post on her social media, the communicator showed two photographs that evidenced the new collapse and allowed for an appreciation of the minimal progress made during the night of Friday and the early hours of Saturday to restore the national electric power system (SEN).

The images, taken from his apartment in Nuevo Vedado, showed two panoramic views of the Cuban capital. In the first, some lights and partially illuminated areas can be seen, while the second captures the latest system outage.

“At 6:15 am on this Saturday, October 19, 2024, there was again a total disconnection of the National Electric System. Here are two photos taken from the Editorial office of the newspaper 14ymedio in Havana,” said Yoani on X (formerly Twitter).

The first photograph was taken "at 6:10 am today when some circuits were seen with electricity in the area around the bay, Old Havana, and in part of the municipality of Diez de Octubre," the journalist noted.

"The other image was taken minutes later, at 6:15 am, when everything went dark again in the Cuban capital except for places that have their own power generation plants," he explained.

This Friday at noon, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) of Cuba reported that a total disconnection of the SEN had occurred after the Guiteras thermoelectric plant went offline.

In an emergency appearance, the director of electricity at MINEM, Lázaro Guerra Hernández, stated that there was no defined time for the complete restoration of the service, although efforts were being made to reconnect the electrical system as soon as possible.

This Saturday morning, slight progress had been made towards supplying electric power to the thermoelectric plants for their startup, something that the head of MINEM, Vicente de la O Levy, celebrated on his social media.

“At this moment, we have microsystems in all provinces, except for Artemisa, which have limited power and reach nearby consumers,” said Guerra Hernández.

However, before 7:00 a.m., the SEN collapsed completely again, undoing the minimal progress made to restore it.