Cuba’s electrical grid went offline Friday, Oct. 18 after one of the island’s major power plants failed, and as a massive blackout that started a day earlier swept across the Caribbean island. Cuba's energy ministry announced that the grid had gone down hours after the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant had ceased operations, at about 11 a.m. local time. Authorities said at the time it was only offline temporarily. Hours earlier, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero had sought to assuage concerned citizens about the outage that began Thursday evening. Millions of Cubans were left without power, prompting the government Friday to implement emergency measures to slash demand, including suspending classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling non-essential services. Various calls by The Associated Press seeking to clarify the extent of the blackout on Friday weren’t answered. In addition to the Antonio Guiteras plant, Cuba has several others and it wasn’t immediately clear whether or not they remain functional. MORE: https://www.wthr.com/article/news/nation-world/cuba-blackout/507-8ee7f43a-48fb-4afc-8e0d-60fe1cda775d