Several Cubans spent the night on the concrete of the Malecón in Havana seeking the sea breeze, which became one of the few reliefs from the sweltering heat and the inability to sleep in homes without electricity, fans, or air conditioning.
The scenes were documented by the agency Associated Press (AP) after the sixth total collapse of the National Electric Power System (SEN) recorded in Cuba during 2026.
The disconnection occurred at 10:43 PM on Sunday, August 2nd. That day, the temperature reached 34 degrees Celsius, but the combination with humidity close to 80% raised the feels-like temperature to approximately 41 degrees.
Alexey Ríos García, a 30-year-old construction worker, woke up on Monday on the seawall, having used a piece of yellow foam as a pillow to shield himself from the concrete.
"The situation is only going to get worse. Tomorrow it will collapse again... and we will be back sleeping on the Malecón," Ríos declared to AP.
In images from the agency shared by journalist Alexis Boentes from Telemundo 51, another young person also expressed his desire to leave Cuba: "I have gotten used to living without electricity. What I need most is to leave the country; I don't need anything else."
Elaine Delis Ramos, a 30-year-old Physical Education teacher, also sought relief at the seawall and lay down with her loved ones on a thick blanket.
"Just when we started to have hope that it wouldn't fall again, there it goes once more. We have no solution," he lamented to AP.
The image of families sleeping on the Malecón reveals a new dimension of the crisis: faced with power outages and extreme heat, some Cubans can no longer find relief within their own homes and must seek it in the open air.
The general blackout on Sunday was the sixth total collapse of the Cuban electrical system in 2026 and, on Monday, when the regime began to restore the national grid, the seventh disconnection of the year occurred.
Moreover, beyond massive blackouts, in the current context, scheduled blackouts now exceed 20 hours daily in most of the country.
The fuel shortage has impacted public transportation, while entire families fear losing the few food items they have left in refrigerators without power. Hospitals, for their part, are looking to install solar panels to keep some essential services operational.
AP placed the worsening of the crisis after the Donald Trump administration restricted oil supplies to Cuba and threatened to impose tariffs on countries that continued to provide crude to the island.
These measures struck a power system weakened by the obsolescence of its thermoelectric plants, lack of maintenance, and recurring breakdowns.
Related videos:
Filed under: