HAVANA — A blackout hit Havana and the rest of the western half of Cuba on Wednesday, leaving millions of people without power on an island struggling with chronic outages blamed on a crumbling electric grid.

Lázaro Guerra, general director of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, said the massive outage was caused by a failure on a transmission line that connects two major plants. He said power would be restored gradually.

In Havana, dozens of police officers were trying to direct traffic while many students who were already in school were sent back home. Small businesses that have generators resumed their sales, especially of food. Some areas had intermittent internet service, so many residents were left wondering what had happened.

“There’s no connection. No one knows why the power is ou

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