The collapse follows nationwide blackouts last year that plunged Cuba's frail power-generating system into disarray.

Cuba suffered a general blackout on Friday caused by a crash of its national electricity grid, officials said, the fourth major power outage on the cash-strapped communist island in five months. “At around 8:15pm tonight,

Cuba's eight thermal power plants, nearly all of which came online in the 1980s or 1990s, suffer routine failures.