Alamar Residents Endure Months of Repeated Power Outages, Warn of Damage to Appliances

A resident from the Alamar neighborhood in La Habana del Este raised concerns this Thursday about ongoing electrical disruptions in the Al53 circuit, which has been experiencing three-minute outages between service restorations for several months. According to the resident, this issue has resulted in more than 60 interruptions in a single day.

Ailín Roman Fernandez brought attention to this problem on the Facebook page of Empresa Eléctrica Cuba UNE, directing her complaint to the Load and Dispatch Department of the Unión Eléctrica, which manages the distribution of electricity across circuits.

In her report, she referred to the interruptions as DAFs, meaning short power cuts lasting three minutes between each reconnection, making it challenging to use household appliances.

The resident explained that neighbors have to wait for the power to stabilize before plugging in their refrigerators, a situation that does not occur during the two or three hours of electricity they receive.

This issue also impacts the water pumps in buildings, which must be restarted each time the power supply is interrupted. The complainant noted that over the course of the day, she counted more than 60 outages.

"We are tired of stating that the Al53 circuit in Alamar has been suffering from these annoying three-minute DAF interruptions whenever the power is turned on," Roman Fernandez wrote.

She urged UNE to address the problem, warning of the potential consequences for the buildings' water pumping systems due to these repeated on-off cycles.

"The water pumps need to be turned on as many times as the DAF occurs, more than 60 times were counted today. Eventually, they will break, and what will we do then?" she questioned.

The situation in Alamar isn't new. Back in May, a blackout in Zone 12 of the neighborhood led to a protest, resulting in police presence and at least one arrest.

In July, further protests erupted in the area as residents reported outages affecting water supply and food preservation.

This unequal distribution pattern among neighboring circuits has also been reported in other parts of Havana, raising suspicions of corruption that authorities have not publicly addressed.

Alamar's crisis is part of a broader and severe electrical collapse in Cuba, with numerous partial and total disconnections from the National Electrical System occurring throughout the year.

At the end of July, Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy admitted to the National Assembly that "the amount of oil stolen from us is nearly equivalent to what we produce during the same period," revealing that some communities have gone up to 105 days without electricity.

The lack of transformers exacerbates the situation. In June, Unión Eléctrica acknowledged there are no spare parts available in any province, and in Havana alone, approximately 25 transformers are damaged each day.

Desperation is spreading beyond Alamar. Recently, residents of Guanabacoa stayed on guard until 3:30 a.m. to prevent workers from Empresa Eléctrica from removing the transformer from their block without showing a work order.

In Caimito, Artemisa, several towns have been without power for 21 days following the theft of dielectric oil from transformers.

"Will we be left in the dark forever? Is that the plan? Does anyone really care?" questioned a Camagüey resident on social media, who had been without power for over 10 days due to a transformer failure with no available replacement.