HAVANA, March 5, (AP): A blackout left millions of people without power in Havana and the rest of western Cuba on Wednesday in the latest outage on an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and a crumbling electric grid. Government radio station Radio Rebelde quoted an energy official as saying that it could take at least 72 hours to restore operations at one of Cuba's largest thermoelectric power plants, where a shutdown sparked the outage.

The government’s electric utility said on social platform X that the outage affected people from the western town of Pinar del Rio to the central town of Camaguey. Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy wrote on X late Wednesday that the government was powering critical infrastructure in the affected region as two power plants came online.

Such infrastructure includes hospitals and medical clinics. "We are working to restore the National Electric System amid a complex energy situation,” he wrote earlier on X. The US Embassy warned people to "prepare for significant disruptions” and conserve fuel, water, food and mobile phone batteries. "Cuba’s national power grid is increasingly unreliable, and scheduled and unscheduled power outages are prolonged and a daily occurrence across the country, including Havana,” it said on X.

By late afternoon, the government said crews had restored power to 2.5% of Havana, or some 21,100 customers, noting that efforts were gradual and tied to what the system's conditions would allow. It did not provide updated numbers by late Wednesday night. "We trust in the experience and effort of the electrical workers to overcome this situation in the shortest possible time,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz wrote on X.

As night fell, people across Havana lingered on doorsteps and used wood or charcoal to prepare "caldosas,” a popular soup shared among neighbors who contribute items including vegetables, chicken and meat. A group of musicians along the city's famed seawall played into the night. Others played dominoes by a rechargeable lightbulb.

"With the power outages, this is the only thing we young people have to distract ourselves,” Jeferson Silvera said. Daily, prolonged outages have become so common in Cuba that 66-year-old Genoveva Torres was waiting for power to return at night as usual to cook dinner. She was perturbed when told about the massive blackout. "My God, until when?” she exclaimed. "Then we won't eat. We'll have to eat bread again.”