A worker in the Cuban electrical sector lost his life this Thursday while performing maintenance tasks with his crew in Havana. He is Edisvey Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, a lineman aged 32 attached to the company in Sancti Spíritus, whose death was confirmed by the Electric Union on their social media.
"We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, and coworkers of lineman Edisvey Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, 32 years old, who passed away on Thursday morning in a workplace accident during maintenance operations carried out by the electrical company brigade of Sancti Spíritus in the Capital," published the Unión Eléctrica (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 support maintenance and service restoration efforts, which entails working in unfamiliar environments and under added pressure.
The death of Pérez Rodríguez adds to a series of tragedies in the Cuban electric sector. In June of this year, Osmani Rosales Núñez, an employee of the Electric Company of Cárdenas, died after receiving an electric shock while making repairs in the Tenería area of Matanzas.
At the end of July, Santiago de Cuba said goodbye to Ulises Cos Ferrer, a veteran lineman and brigade leader who, after retiring, continued to work as an instructor at the Training School of the provincial electricity company.
In September 2025, Cleivi Pujada Castro died while working on a 7.8 kV line in Artemisa, and days prior, Carlos Rafael López Ibarra, a 33-year-old turbine operator at the Renté thermoelectric plant, had passed away with burns covering 89% of his body.
Since 2022, at least six deaths of linemen have been documented in various provinces of the country.
The conditions under which these crews operate are extremely precarious. 2026 reports on Cuban linemen describe gloves, helmets, harnesses, and ladders in poor condition, vehicles with mechanical failures, fuel shortages, transformers, and conductors, as well as exhausting workdays.
The UNE itself acknowledged in July the extreme pressure its workers endure when it publicly asked the community to offer them "a glass of water or a coffee" as a gesture of gratitude.
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, within a total of 38 deaths and 701 injuries nationwide that year, figures that highlight the significant human toll of sustaining a collapsing electrical system.
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