Nearly half of Cuba without power as blackouts deepen

HAVANA (Reuters) - More than half of Cuba was without power on Thursday evening as fuel shortages and broken-down power plants left the government with little choice but to black out a vast swath of the Caribbean island nation.

Cuba's National Electric Union reported it had run a deficit of nearly 1600 megawatts with a demand approaching 3,200 MW around supper time on Thursday, leaving millions without lights, fans and air conditioning as night fell.

Parts of Havana saw intermittent blackouts throughout the day, but some provinces, including Pinar del Rio, a key farm and tobacco-growing region, were entirely without light for part of the evening.

The situation had improved by Friday morning, but authorities said in a daily report that nearly one-third of the island would be blacked out again as peak demand approached later in the day.

The recent spike comes following months of hours-long blackouts across Cuba, as decrepit oil-fired power plants, many decades old, fail repeatedly, and the bankrupt Communist-run government, saddled by U.S. sanctions, struggles to purchase fuel on the global market.

A foreboding economic crisis, including dire shortages of food, fuel and medicine, have prompted a record-breaking exodus of Cubans from the island, further deepening its woes.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Bill Berkrot)