Rubbish piles and cooking with firewood - fuel shortages push Cubans to breaking point

The BBC's Will Grant spoke to several Cubans as the country grapples with severe electricity shortages, which is attributed in part to US sanctions.

Fuel has been scarce for years in Cuba. Power cuts have been routine, particularly since mid-2024, when the country descended into a full-scale energy crisis that caused several nationwide blackouts. Aging power plants, chronic underinvestment, and limited domestic oil production have pushed the electric grid to the brink of collapse. Until the oil shipment blockade, these power cuts lasted 12-14 hours. Now, they can go on for more than 20 hours. Food spoils. Water pumps stop. Hospitals switch to generators – if any fuel is still available.

Evidence of the fuel crisis is increasingly clear across the length and breadth of the island. With only a small part of the state's garbage trucks operating, rubbish is piled high in the streets. Amid fears of a widespread public health crisis, some residents have taken to burning rubbish piles at night, filling the streets with acrid smoke.

In Havana, suffocated by the oil crisis imposed by the United States, dawn breaks to the smell of smoke from burning garbage piled up in the streets. Cars barely pass along the beautiful, long Malecón, which runs alongside a sea devoid of ships, and people walk in silence. Every day, most Cubans go out into the streets to “invent,” as they call it, to find every possible way to survive the extreme conditions they have endured for years, and for the past three weeks, since U.S. pressure has intensified.

Havana's garbage piles up on the streets, attracting hordes flies, and smelling of rotten foods. This is one of the visible effects of the U.S. effort to prevent oil reaching the Caribbean's largest island. Cubadebate, a state-run news outlet, reported that only 44 out of 106 Havana's rubbish trucks could continue to operate due to fuel shortages. This slowed down garbage collection. Residents sorted through the piles of cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, rags and used bags to find scraps that they could reuse, but motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists were forced to avoid the massive heaps.