Havana was on Wednesday evening a capital in the dark.

A total blackout hit Cuba, the latest in a series of outages blamed on aging infrastructure and fuel shortages at power plants.

It was the second island-wide outage this year, with three other blackouts reported late last year.

The ministry said crews were working to restore power to the island of roughly 10 million people, with electricity slowly returning to hospitals, food production plants and other high-priority businesses.

Too little, too late for Havana resident Imelda Bosque.

She said: "There are very few expectations because we have very little hope. They don't give us answers. They don't give us solutions to our problems. What can I say? I have no words, but here we are waiting for a miracle from God."

Traffic lights were out and many social and cultural activities were suspended. Areas to the east, such as Guanabo, Marianao, and Cabañas, had electricity in the afternoon, and areas of Vedado and Centro Habana had power in the evening, according to AP.

Internet service nationwide was particularly slow and experienced intermittent downtime in some areas.

The power outage also affected many homes on the island, including in the capital, for cooking, as natural gas is very limited, as well as for pumping water, which requires electricity.

Earlier this week, an outage hit Cuba's eastern region, leaving people from Las Tunas to Guantánamo in the dark for several hours.

In February, the government suspended classes and work activities for two days given a shortage in electricity generation.

There is a severe economic and energy supply crisis in Cuba. It has worsened in recent years due to U.S. sanctions intended to put pressure on the island to change its political model.

The sanctions have prevented the Caribbean nation from having sufficient foreign currency to buy fuel or repair its aging thermoelectric plants, many of which have been operating for more than 30 years.

AP Video shot by Ariel Fernández and Milexsy Durán