A fire was reported this Saturday at the intersection of Merced and Egido streets in Old Havana, according to images and comments shared in a Facebook post by the Electric Company of Havana.
The photographs show a thick column of black smoke rising above buildings, with at least one fire truck responding to the incident while civilians, including children, looked on from the street.
Although the exact cause has not been officially confirmed, neighbors commenting on the post are directly pointing to the abrupt reconnections of the electrical supply.
However, a commentator clarified that what burned was not a residential electrical installation: “That is a Telecommunications line”, he wrote, identifying the source of the fire as being in the underground infrastructure of the historic center.
The warning about the dangers of that practice in the area is not new. "For that reason, the power could not be turned off and on in this zone, but apparently those in charge do not know that," noted another commentator, referring to the fragility of the cables and underground connections in the face of electrical fluctuations.
Several neighbors expressed alarm over the proximity of gas pipes beneath the streets. "Now imagine that underground with gas. We could explode like a bomb; no one would survive. But nobody cares; we live worse than animals," wrote one person.
Another was more direct: "They don't care about the people because they know what the removal and installation mean underground. What if it explodes down there? And what about the houses next door? And the thousands of people who pass by there every day?"
No casualties were reported in the available comments, nor is there official confirmation of injuries or damage to property.
The incident is part of a series of failures linked to the deterioration of the underground infrastructure in Old Havana. Since July 2026, the Electric Company has repeatedly disconnected the underground area due to emergencies in national generation, with a deficit that has exceeded 2,100 MW. Residents have been reporting that the blackouts are destroying the underground infrastructure irreversibly for months.
The background is alarming: a burned electrical connection in Lamparilla and Villegas, an underground fire in Zanja and Belascoaín that melted the pavement, and neighborhood protests on Villegas Street due to the accumulation of failures in basic services.
The power outage map of Old Havana records repeated cuts in multiple underground circuits in the area during August 2026.
The affected area is part of the historic center designated as World Heritage by UNESCO in 1982, whose restoration was driven for decades by the historian Eusebio Leal, who passed away in 2020.
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