Cuba's power grid collapses, leaving it without electricity for the 3rd time this month

Cuba's power grid collapsed Saturday, leaving the country without electricity for a third time in March as the communist government battles with a decaying infrastructure and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade.

HAVANA — Cuba's power grid collapsed Saturday, leaving the country without electricity for a third time in March as the communist government battles with a decaying infrastructure and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade.

The Cuban Electric Union, which reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, announced a total blackout across the island without initially giving a cause for the outage.

The union later said the blackout was caused by an unexpected failure of a generating unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province.

"From that moment, a cascading effect occurred in the machines that were online," said a report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which activated "micro-islands" of generating units to provide power to vital centers, hospitals and water systems.

Authorities said they were working to restore power.