Cuba forced to ‘paralyse economy’ amid desperate energy crisis
Al Jazeera
Millions of Cubans face 12-hour blackouts per day, but PM Marrero says country ‘not yet in a bottomless abyss’.
Cuba’s government has announced it will halt all non-vital state services and businesses for three days as it battles an energy crisis that has caused marathon blackouts for much of the country.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero outlined the measures in an address Thursday night, saying the government had no choice but to “paralyse the economy.”
This includes shuttering all cultural activities and recreation centres such as discos, as well as public schools until Monday, Cuba’s state-run electricity union said in a release.
After initially announcing staggered geographical outages, the government declared a complete breakdown of the National Electric Power System shortly after 11am (15:00 GMT) on Friday morning, declaring it had been “totally disconnected.”
It added that the state electricity company “is working on its reestablishment.”
