Jamaica scrambles to restore power after rare islandwide blackout

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PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — Jamaica's national electricity provider said it was racing to restore service early Saturday, after an outage left the entire island without power overnight.

The sole energy supplier in the country, Jamaica ​Public Service Company, confirmed the outage that began just after 9 p.m. on Friday affected all utility customers across the tiny Caribbean nation of 2.8 million people.

The company president, Hugh Grant, said authorities were still investigating the causes of the blackout, but that it was likely related to lightning that struck near major substations and other grid infrastructure.

Jamaican Energy Minister Daryl Vaz said power had been restored to roughly 500,000 out of 700,000 customers by Saturday morning and expected a full restoration within hours.

“I commit to keeping the nation advised and updated on this UNACCEPTABLE SITUATION,” he wrote on X.

Such sudden systemwide grid failures are rare in Jamaica, where major disruptions are usually linked to severe weather. Hurricane Melissa knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers when it struck the island in October 2025.