HAVANA - Cuba closed schools and told non-essential workers to stay home on Friday as its electrical grid faltered following the failure of a major power plant, causing widespread blackouts across the crisis-ridden island.
Only six of the country's 15 oil-fired power plants are in operation, according to government reports, and a dire fuel shortage has made it impossible to run smaller clusters of diesel-fired generators that typically back up the system. The predicament has hobbled the island's creaky electrical system and led to the largest blackouts since several nationwide grid collapses late last year left the entire nation of 10 million people in the dark, prompting scattered protests and unrest. Dwindling oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico last year pushed the island's obsolete and struggling oil-fired power plants into full crisis. The government said late on Thursday it would "suspend... teaching and work activities that are not essential under current conditions."
