Residents of the neighborhood Querejeta, in the municipality of Playa, Havana, staged a casserole protest after enduring more than 10 hours without electricity this Tuesday.
The video was shared on Facebook by the user Mandy Caos, who recorded the protest in complete nighttime darkness.
The author of the video left a revealing note: "there's less noise than last time", which confirms that this is not the first time residents of that area have resorted to banging pots and pans as a form of protest against power outages.
Querejeta is a residential neighborhood located in the eastern part of the Playa municipality, in the northwest of Havana, near areas such as Romerillo, Buena Vista, Náutico, and Cubanacán.
Since November 2024, it was already listed among the areas with complex outages according to the Electric Union, and residents reported at that time loss of food and lack of communication from the authorities.
The pot-and-pan protest this Tuesday occurs in an especially critical energy context, and authorities have just reported that the collapse is compounded by the shutdown of Unit 1 of the Ernesto Guevara De La Serna Thermal Power Plant due to a failure in the Turbine Regulation System.
On Monday, April 6, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant was taken offline from the National Electric System at 3:00 AM due to a puncture in its boiler, with repairs estimated to take 72 hours.
Her departure triggered the national electricity deficit to between 1,740 and 1,845 megawatts, exacerbating blackouts across the island. On the same day, Havana experienced outages lasting 14 hours and 42 minutes.
The municipality of Playa has established itself as one of the main centers of protests due to the energy crisis in Havana since March 2026.
On March 9, there was a pot-banging protest in Miramar, and the following day another one took place in Jaimanitas, where the independent journalist Yunia Figueredo was detained.
On March 23, following protests involving garbage burning in Playa, the authorities restored the electricity service in the area, which the residents saw as a direct concession in response to public pressure.
The Cuban regime has attributed the energy crisis to the U.S. embargo, while the country's electrical infrastructure continues to collapse due to decades of neglect and insufficient investment, with citizens responding by banging pots and pans in the dark.
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