A resident of Aguada de Pasajeros, in the province of Cienfuegos, climbed onto the roof of his home this Saturday to protest by banging on a pot after enduring 48 continuous hours without electricity, in an act of desperation that was captured on video and shared on social media.
The images show the man, shirtless, leaning over the edge of the roof of a concrete building while striking the utensil as a sign of protest.
"This man climbed onto the roof of his house to protest after enduring 48 continuous hours without power in Aguada de Pasajeros in Cienfuegos," described the user who posted the video.
The episode takes place amid a historical electricity crisis in Cuba, which left approximately 65% of the country without power this Saturday, according to data from the Electric Union.
The entity reported an availability of only 1,090 MW compared to a maximum demand of 3,050 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,960 MW and an estimated impact of 1,990 MW during peak hours, according to figures published by Infobae.
Among the causes of the collapse are the complete lack of fuel, breakdowns in thermoelectric plants—including Antonio Guiteras—and the structural deterioration of the system, with 106 distributed generation plants offline due to a lack of diesel.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, recognized on May 23 that Cuba was "absolutely without fuel, without diesel" and described the situation as "acute, critical, and extremely tense."
The individual protest in Aguada de Pasajeros is part of a growing wave of social discontent that has already led to cacerolazos in Havana neighborhoods such as El Vedado, Centro Habana, and Playa last Tuesday. Cubalex documented at least 14 arrests related to protests over blackouts since March 6, 2026.
Aguada de Pasajeros has its own history of resilience in the face of blackouts. On July 30, 2022, a protest in the Covadonga Popular Council gathered between 600 and 700 people after more than 16 hours without electricity, resulting in over 200 arrests. In July 2023, a military court sentenced eight protesters from that locality to prison terms of up to nine years.
The Cuban Conflict Observatory recorded over 1,200 protests in March 2026 and more than 1,100 in April, reflecting a sustained escalation of discontent across the island in the face of a dictatorship that offers no solutions to the worst energy crisis the country has experienced in recent years.
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