Dark times Blackouts spark fears of wider collapse

Maria Elena Cárdenas is 76 and lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana's colonial old town.

- Ruaridh Nicoll

The building has an elegant past, but in recent days Maria has been cooking with sticks she found on the street.

"You know, we Cubans manage the best we can," she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city.

Cuba's government has spent the last days attempting to get the national grid functioning after repeated islandwide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food spoils and water supply fails.

Parts of Cuba's communist system still function: the municipality sent Maria food. "We are three families here," she said. "I live alone, the lady who lives next to me [does] also, and there are two children, the children's mother, her aunt and an elderly man."

A week after the blackout, the island had returned to the regular power cuts of up to 20 hours a day. But the crisis has left a deep, melancholy dread about the future.

"Cubans have a cheerful idiosyncrasy," said Julio César Rodríguez, 52. "Even when things are bad we laugh. But this is really bad."