HAVANA  -   Cuban Tania Ramirez walks alone along Havana’s famous Malecon promenade to relieve the stress wrought by the massive blackout that has plunged the entire island into darkness. “I feel very disappointed, frustrated and hopeless,” said the 39-year-old housewife. “It’s not only the lack of electricity but also of gas and water,” she told AFP, 11 hours after the unplanned shutdown of Cuba’s main thermal power plant triggered the collapse of the country’s grid. With a frown, she said her “generation wants to continue trusting” in the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, but her “resilience has limits”. Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in 30 years, marked by sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water. And for the past three months, Cubans have been battling chronic blackouts that have become longer and more frequent. Cuban authorities were trying since Friday night into Saturday to restore electricity. The unexpected shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the biggest of the island’s eight decrepit coal-fired power plants, caused the national grid to fail, Lazaro Guerra, director general of electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, told state television.

When the power plant shut down, “the system collapsed,” he said, adding that the government was working to restore service as soon as possible to the island’s 11 million people.

By nightfall, the only lights illuminating the capital of two million people were those from hotels, hospitals and a few private businesses with their own generating plants.

The streets were almost empty, with no public transport and traffic lights out of service.