A Cuban identified as Dailigd posted a video on Facebook this Saturday in which she breaks down in tears and denounces the desperation her family is experiencing after more than 24 hours without electricity, in a testimony that has become a symbol of the collective exhaustion in the face of the electrical crisis in Cuba.
In the 58-second clip, recorded at night, the woman shows her sleeping children while she manually fans them to alleviate the heat. She describes a day that only had two brief power interruptions—one lasting 20 minutes and another lasting 30—before they were left without electricity again.
"How long do our children have to fall asleep with someone blowing air on them, using a fan for light because there is no electricity? Today they had it for 20 minutes, then took it away after 20 minutes, they had it back for almost an hour, and then they put it on again for another 30 minutes. More than 24 hours without electricity," Dailigd recounts in the video.
The woman also complains that the food is going to waste and that the situation has reached an unsustainable limit: "How long? Tell me, how long? They are leading us to the abyss, to the end. We can't take it anymore, we can’t endure any longer. This is not a life at all."
The video was published under the hashtag #TiredMothers and has garnered 2,253 likes and 462 comments, reflecting the immediate resonance it had among Cubans.
Dailigd's testimony coincides with one of the worst days of the year for the Cuban electrical system. This Saturday, the Electricity Union (UNE) reported only 757 MW available during the day and projected a deficit of 2,120 MW for the evening peak hour, with an estimated demand of 3,200 MW against an offering of only 1,080 MW.
That same day, ten thermoelectric units were out of service: six due to breakdowns and four under scheduled maintenance.
The situation is not new. On July 29, the UNE anticipated a record deficit of 2,380 MW, with only 850 MW available against a demand of 3,200 MW, the highest figure recorded so far this year.
In July, Havana recorded between 20 and 30 hours daily without electricity, while in inland provinces, outages extended up to 72 consecutive hours, according to reports from Infobae.
The video adds to a series of viral testimonies that have documented the human impact of the crisis throughout 2026: a mother who reported 48 hours without electricity with her son, another who showed her daughter with a heat rash, and a third who summarized the feelings of many with a phrase that is often repeated: “I can't take it anymore”.
In 2026, Cuba recorded five total collapses of the National Electric System—blackouts that left the entire island without power at the same time—a figure that reflects the extreme deterioration of an aging thermal power fleet, lacking proper maintenance and facing chronic fuel shortages.
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