Re: News: Cuba's blackouts due to last for weeks

[JohnnyCastaway]

From Caribbean Net News  http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/
 
 
 Cuba's blackouts due to last for weeks
 
 Wednesday, July 6, 2005
 HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): After two months of almost daily blackouts, Cuban authorities announced that the trouble would drag on for weeks -- at least until the end of July -- in the middle of Cuba's sweltering summer.
 
 "There is still a great deal of risk; there are a lot of limitations and there are still warning signs we can identify at all (power-generating) plants," Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia said on state television late Monday.
 
 Garcia, a member of the Cuban Communist Party's politburo, last October replaced then minister Marcos Portal amid a prolonged energy crisis that President Fidel Castro said revealed that the national power system was "weak." To Cubans, this was not news.
 
 Blackouts are so common in Cuba -- a country of more than 11 million -- that the running joke is that they are the everyday reality, while the unusual thing is a welcome and attention-grabbing "lights-on."
 
 A government statement criticized Portal for having rejected colleagues' advice and consequently making mistakes.
 
 A breakdown in May at Cuba's main oil-fueled power plant in Matanzas province took months to repair, and blackouts have been rampant.
 
 Led by Castro since 1959, Cuba has been in dire economic straits since the collapse of the former Soviet bloc which once provided subsidized food and fuel.
 
 Havana has been unable to complete a Soviet-technology nuclear reactor that was once planned for Juragua.
 
 And with its oil-burning plants, Cuba relies on Venezuelan imports, while its own crude, which is high in sulfur, requires costly cleaning to be used.

[lesab33]

This is definetly an awful way to live.  Imagine working 6 days a week and on your only day off the power is off from 7am until 12 midnight??  This is what one of the workers experienced while I was in Cuba last week.  Another said her blackout was ONLY till 7 pm - lucky her??

[flopnfly]

Good point Les,
 
 Remember what we were like with the "big blackout" ?
 
 It crippled the city for a couple of days, we were lost, didn't know what to do.
 
 It makes you wonder how we would cope if we had to live with the same black out conditions that the Cubans have to live with.
 
 Heather