The setbacks since Friday have underscored the complexity of the work and the still fragile and fragile state of the country’s power grid.

Cuba restored power to just 160,000 customers in Havana after midday Sunday, officials said, leaving most of the capital’s nearly two million people without electricity.

Anabel Gonzalez, a housewife in Old Havana, a popular tourist area, said she had been without power for three days and noticed her food supplies were dwindling.

“My mobile phone is dead and look at my refrigerator, what little I had is gone,” he told Reuters, pointing to empty shelves in his modest two-bedroom home.

Cuba’s grid operator restored service to about a fifth of its customers late Saturday when the network partially went down again, forcing technicians to start the process over again.

Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters in Havana that he expected the power grid to be fully functional by Monday or Tuesday, although he warned residents not to expect dramatic improvements.

“We will restore the network, but there are still not enough spare parts. And along with fuel shortages, we will continue to see power outages,” De la O Levy said.

RISING TENSIONS

Reuters journalists witnessed two small protests overnight on Saturday after a power failure plunged Havana into darkness: one on the outskirts of the capital in Marianao and the other in Cuatro Caminos, Old Havana.

De la O Levy said the power outages were frustrating for residents, but noted that most Cubans understand and support the government’s efforts to restore power.

“Cooperation is part of Cuban culture,” De la O Levy told reporters. “We classify those isolated and minimal incidents that exist as incorrect and indecent,” he added.

Internet traffic in Cuba fell sharply over the weekend as major power outages left residents virtually unable to charge their phones or connect to the Internet, according to Internet monitoring group NetBlocks.

“Grid data shows Cuba remains largely offline as the island experiences its second nationwide blackout,” Netblocks said on Saturday.

The government attributes successive weeks of increasingly severe power outages – up to 20 hours a day across much of the island – to deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and rising demand.

Cuba also blames the U.S. trade embargo, as well as sanctions imposed by then-President Donald Trump, for ongoing difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate and maintain its oil plants.

The United States denies any involvement in the network outages. (Reuters).