A video posted on TikTok by the user @dukedecuba shows the Malecón in Havana completely dark during the national blackout that crippled the Cuban electrical system on July 6, 2026, with hundreds of people taking refuge on the waterfront to escape the unbearable heat.
The recording, released in the early hours of Tuesday, describes the scene with these words: "The Malecón in Havana in darkness, National Blackout, people are sleeping on the Malecón due to the intense heat of these months."
The collapse of the National Electric Power System (SEN) occurred at 12:17 PM on Sunday, leaving approximately 9.6 million people across the island without electricity, according to international media outlets such as RTVE and CNN in Spanish.
The immediate cause was the unexpected shutdown of Unit No. 6 at the Nuevitas thermoelectric power plant in Camagüey, which triggered a cascading disconnection throughout the rest of the grid.
The Electric Union (UNE) could not provide a clear technical explanation regarding the cause of the failure, as it confirmed that no malfunctions were recorded in other operational thermal units at that time.
It was the third total blackout registered in Cuba in 2026 and the seventh in the last 18 months, amid a structural energy crisis that has been exacerbated by decades of neglect and worsened by fuel shortages.
The Malecón became a spontaneous refuge because temperatures in July exceed 33°C, making it unbearable to stay in homes without fans or air conditioning.
Images from the AFP agency and other international media also documented the same scene: Havana residents gathered along the seaside promenade during the nighttime blackout.
The restoration of the supply was slow and partial. On Monday, Cuba reported having restored only 30.4% of the service in Havana, benefiting approximately 262,369 customers and keeping 43 health centers operational in the capital, according to the Electric Company of Havana.
In the interior provinces, the situation was even more severe: in Matanzas, the outages lasted for 87 consecutive hours without electricity.
Before the collapse, the system was already facing a deficit of over 2,200 MW against a demand of 3,100 MW, with 106 distributed generation plants shut down due to lack of fuel and the country's main thermoelectric plant, Antonio Guiteras, having more than 15 outages due to breakdowns since the beginning of the year.
The regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel attributed the crisis to the oil sanctions imposed by the United States since January 2026, which Havana claims have disrupted the supply of Venezuelan crude oil.
However, the crisis has structural roots that far predate those sanctions: aging thermoelectric plants without capital maintenance since 2010, over three months without regular oil supplies, and an energy debt accumulated over decades of regime management.
Energy expert Julio Trío, quoted by international media, summarized the situation with a direct warning: "2026 will be worse."
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