HAVANA, Cuba, (AFP) – Cuba’s state electricity operator said Tuesday that the power grid across the country had been reconnected after a 36-hour nationwide blackout.

Authorities had struggled to get generation facilities and connectors back on line, prompting frustration among Cubans who have suffered six islandwide blackouts this year on top of constant localized power cuts.

“This is the new normal: the system goes down, they reconnect it, and it goes down again,” said 57-year-old tricycle taxi driver Carlos Garcia. “But we never have power anyway, even when the electrical grid doesn’t fail. So, for me, it makes no difference.”

The embattled communist nation of more than nine million people is struggling to keep the lights on due to creaking infrastructure and a biting US energy blockade.

Most Cubans now have power only for a few hours a day at best, making normal life impossible.

With each outage everything from water pumps to ceiling fans grinds to a halt.

Late Monday in the pitch-black of Old Havana, residents stood on balconies and hung out of windows thumping kitchenware and clapping in an hour-long protest.

Cuba’s Foreign Minster Bruno Rodriguez on Tuesday pinned the blame for the crisis at Washington’s door.

Grid failures are “direct consequences of the genocidal US blockade against Cuba,” he posted on social media.

The blockade, he said, not only “prevents the free importation of fuel; it blocks the entry of parts and components… hinders collaboration with experts from other nations and impedes access to international financing.”

The United States says the crisis is down to the communist government’s mismanagement of the economy.

Many of Cuba’s electricity production facilities run off fuel oil, diesel or natural gas, which are no longer regularly arriving in Cuban ports.

Washington has warned countries they will face sanctions if they deliver oil to Cuba – a threat Havana’s longtime allies in Russia and China have not been willing to openly test.