A worker from the Cuban electric sector lost his life this Thursday while carrying out maintenance work with his team in Havana. The deceased is Edisvey Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, a 32-year-old lineman assigned to the company from Sancti Spíritus, whose passing was confirmed by the Electric Union on their social media.
"We extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the lineman Edisvey Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, 32 years old, who passed away on the morning of this Thursday in a workplace accident during maintenance operations carried out by the brigade of the electrical company of Sancti Spíritus in the Capital," published the Electric Union (UNE), accompanying the message with an image of a black mourning ribbon.
The case illustrates a common pattern in Cuba: in response to the energy crisis, brigades from the provinces are sent to the capital to assist with maintenance and service restoration efforts, which entails operating in unfamiliar environments and under additional pressure.
The death of Pérez Rodríguez adds to a series of tragedies in the Cuban electrical sector. In June of this year, Osmani Rosales Núñez, an employee of the Electric Company of Cárdenas, passed away after receiving an electrical shock while making repairs in the Tenería area of Matanzas.
At the end of July, Santiago de Cuba bid farewell to Ulises Cos Ferrer, a veteran lineman and crew chief who, after retiring, continued to work as an instructor at the Training School of the provincial electric company.
In September 2025, Cleivi Pujada Castro passed away while working on a 7.8 kV line in Artemisa, and days earlier Carlos Rafael López Ibarra, a 33-year-old turbine operator at the Renté thermoelectric plant, had died with burns covering 89% of his body.
Since 2022, at least six deaths of line workers have been documented in various provinces of the country.
The conditions under which these crews operate are extremely precarious. Reports from 2026 on Cuban electrical linemen describe gloves, helmets, harnesses, and ladders in poor condition, vehicles with mechanical failures, shortages of fuel, transformers, and wires, in addition to exhausting work hours.
In July, UNE itself acknowledged the extreme pressure its workers endure when it publicly appealed to the public to offer them "a glass of water or a little coffee" as a gesture of appreciation.
According to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) for 2025, the Electricity, Gas, and Water sector recorded five fatalities due to workplace accidents, out of a national total of 38 deaths and 701 injuries that year, figures that highlight the high human cost of sustaining an electricity system in collapse.
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