Havana power cut leaves 5 million Cubans in the dark
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 1:44p.m.
Power has failed in Cuba's capital, plunging most of the city and some of its suburbs into darkness.
There was no immediate word on what caused the blackout, which hit a little after 8 pm local time in the middle of the nightly news on state television.
State radio made no mention of the power failure, and calls to the power system's headquarters gave busy signals.
The outage knocked power out in a 40-kilometre stretch from Havana's western residential neighbourhoods across the city's centre and Old Havana district and on to suburbs on the other side of the bay.
In Havana's Vedado entertainment and business district, the only buildings with visible light were tourist hotels and upscale apartment towers, which have backup generators.
Big blackouts were common in Havana a decade ago, when Cuba had an energy crisis. Isolated outages still hit the city on occasion, but citywide blackouts have become rare.
AP
