‘There is no money’: Cuba fears total collapse amid grid failure and financial crisis

Residents prepare a soup over an open fire during a blackout after the failure of a major power plant in Havana on 19 October. Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/AP

Maria Elena Cárdenas is 76 and lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had 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.