As Cuba swelters under six-month oil blockade imposed by US, tempers are fraying and unrest is growing When Cuba’s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days…

As Cuba swelters under six-month oil blockade imposed by US, tempers are fraying and unrest is growing When Cuba’s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days on Tuesday, a collective groan spreads across its cities and people wonder, again, whether the island’s antiquated electricity system may soon become unrecoverable. The 777-mile Caribbean island of 9.5 million people has been sweltering under a six-month-long oil blockade imposed by the US, part of a pressure campaign to bring down its communist government. But the parlous state of Cuba’s infrastructure goes far further back. “The backbone of the system is still the big power plants,’ said Jorge Piñon, a senior energy researcher at the University of Texas. “And they’re old, broken and tired.” With summer temperatures now in the mid-30s and humidity at 80%, tempers on the street have begun to break. For many, the nationwide collapses mesh seamlessly with already withering local blackouts. Where once salsa filled the streets, now the drumming of pots and pans has become the country’s soundtrack, cacerolazos that represent the shared misery of no sleep, ruined food and fading hopes of reprieve. Electricity returns only sporadically. “An hour isn’t enough time to run the pump to get water or to charge phones,” Alberto, a middle-aged man, yelled through a cacophony of pans in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood last week. “People want the government to act right now.” The government, however, says it has few options. “We’ve said it before, there is a total absence of fuel,” said Vicente de la O Levy, the minister of energy. “And we do not have access to spare parts for our thermoelectric units.” Ever since 3 January, when the US military abducted President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Donald Trump has promised Cuba will fall. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he told reporters at the White House in March.