Cuba restored a trickle of power to its grid by mid-evening on Friday, officials said, hours after the island plunged into a countrywide blackout following the collapse of one of its major power plants.

Cubans expressed alarm, with one resident saying it felt as if the country had reached the “bottom of the barrel.”

Cuba’s electrical grid went offline after one of the island’s major power plant failed, the energy ministry said.

Cuba's national grid collapsed on Friday, leaving the entire population of 10 million people without electricity and underscoring the precarious state of the Communist-run country's infrastructure and economy.

Cuba suffered an island-wide blackout Friday after one of its main power plants failed, the country’s energy ministry said.

Cuba was racing Friday to restore electricity after the failure of the island's biggest power plant caused a nationwide blackout, coming on the heels of weeks of extended outages across

Cuba’s electrical grid went down Friday after one of the island’s major power plants failed, a day after a massive blackout swept across the Caribbean island and with no official estimate for when service will be restored.

WHY DID THE GRID COLLAPSE? Cuba's electrical grid and oil-fired power plants are obsolete and crumbling, constructed decades ago and scarcely maintained. And because Cuba produces very little fossil fuel of its own - with limited refining capacity - it depends almost entirely on imports to assure adequate generation.

A growing energy crisis reached a crescendo Friday, as the country’s main power plant suddenly shut down, cutting off electricity to millions of Cubans.

Cuba’s electrical grid went down Friday after one of the island’s major power plants failed, a day after a massive blackout swept across the Caribbean island and with no official estimate for when service will be restored.