At least 18 of 23 states reportedly affected by blackout authorities blamed on anti-government saboteurs

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Venezuela has been hit by a vast power cut, with at least 18 of its 23 states reportedly affected by a blackout authorities blamed on anti-government saboteurs.

Commuters in the country’s crumbling capital, Caracas, were forced to walk home from work after the metro service was paralyzed by the outage, while the international airport was reportedly plunged into darkness.

Millions of citizens from the western state of Zulia to Amazonas in the far south were also reported to have been affected.

The Venezuelan news website El Pitazo reported that the outage appeared to be the result of a failure at the Simón Bolívar hydroelectric plant in the southern state of Bolívar.

Members of Nicolás Maduro’s crisis-stricken government claimed opposition wreckers had targeted the plant, which is also known as Guri.

“The black out has been caused by sabotage at Guri,” tweeted the official account of the television program of Maduro’s second-in-command, Diosdado Cabello.

“This is not an attack on the government. It is an attack on the people,” Venezuela’s electricity minister, Luis Motta Domínguez, told reporters.

Maduro blamed “United States imperialism” for the problem and vowed it would be defeated. “Nothing and nobody will defeat the people of Bolívar and Chávez,” he tweeted.

Venezuela’s state-run power company, Corpoelec, claimed the blackout was “part of the electricity war against the state” and said it was working to restore supply.

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Amid a crippling economic crisis, shortages of water and power – which experts blame on mismanagement, corruption and poor maintenance – are now common. Even upmarket restaurants and hotels in Caracas are regularly deprived of both.

Even so, Thursday’s power outage appeared to be unusually severe even by Venezuelan standards.

“The international airport … is almost totally without electricity at this moment,” the opposition politician, Jony Rahal, informed his Twitter followers in a video.

“What can we say? We’re tired of this government,” one frustrated commuter told the Venezuelan TV channel NTN24.

The blackout was so severe that one Venezuelan journalist asked his Twitter followers to report if they had electricity, not if they did not.

The United States senator Marco Rubio – who has thrown his weight behind efforts to unseat Maduro and replace him with opposition leader Juan Guaidó – described the blackout as further proof that Venezuela’s strongman ruler was on his way out. </s> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — An electrical outage has left much of Venezuela without power in what authorities are decrying as an act of “sabotage.”

Local media reported Thursday that nearly the entire nation is experiencing a blackout just as workers begin their commute home.

State-owned electricity operator CORPOELEC blamed the outage as part of a “power war” against the nation on Twitter.

The agency says the blackout stems from an attack on the Guri power plant and that officials are working to restore service.

Pro-government officials often blame outages involving Venezuela’s mismanaged and poorly maintained power grid on the opposition.

Outages have become a regular occurrence in Venezuela though Thursday’s outage appeared to be wider in reach than usual. </s> CARACAS, Venezuela — Much of Venezuela remained engulfed by darkness early Friday amid one of the largest power outages in years, a problem President Nicolas Maduro's government quickly blamed on "sabotage" at a hydroelectric dam.

The blackout hit 22 of 23 states, according to the Associated Press. It struck the capital Caracas, which until now has been spared the worst of a collapse in the nation's grid, at the peak of rush hour.

Venezuela's socialist government blasted the outage as an "electrical war" directed by the United States.

Blackouts are frequent in Venezuela, where the economy is collapsing under hyperinflation, with chronic shortages of food and medicine and a mass emigration of more than 3 million citizens.

Critics say corruption and under investment have left the country's power grid unable to function, while Maduro says the problems are intentionally created by political adversaries.

Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said right-wing extremists intent on causing pandemonium in Venezuela and taking orders from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio were behind the blackout, although he offered no proof.

State-owned electricity operator Corpoelec blamed the outage on act of "sabotage" at the Guri Dam, one of the world's largest hydroelectric stations and the cornerstone of Venezuela's electrical grid. Rodriguez described it as a "cyber" attack intended to derail the whole system. He said electricity in Venezuela's eastern region had been restored within two hours.

Thousands of commuters flooded into the streets because subway service was stopped. A snarl of cars jammed the streets amid confusion generated by blackened stoplights. Others had to walk long distances to get home.

"The person responsible for this is named Nicolas Maduro," said Pedro Fernandez, 44, a systems engineer in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, on his way by foot to the other side of town. "This is just the tip of the iceberg given all the things we're suffering."

The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó, the head of congress who declared himself the nation's rightful president in January and is recognized by the United States and about 50 nations.

Guaidó took to Twitter to blast Maduro for the outage.

"How do you tell a mom who needs to cook, an ill person who depends on a machine, a worker who should be laboring that we are in a powerful country without electricity?" he wrote.

Venezuela's electrical system was once the envy of Latin America but it has fallen into a state of disrepair after years of poor maintenance and mismanagement. High-ranking officials have been accused in U.S. court proceedings of looting government money earmarked for the electrical system. </s> • A massive blackout has hit most of Venezuela, an anomaly even for a country that has frequent power shortages.
• President Nicolás Maduro blamed “American imperialism” for starting an “electricity war” with the Venezuelan people.
• Critics say the power grid is decaying because the government is not maintaining and funding it.

A massive blackout has left most of Venezuela in the dark, surprising even locals who have grown accustomed to food, medicine and power shortages.

The electricity went out in 22 out of 23 states on Thursday, and is still not working as of early Friday, The Associated Press reported.

Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro blamed the opposition without presenting evidence, as he commonly does in the case of a power outage.

Read more: Nicolas Maduro posted a 40-minute livestream about his plans for celebrating Carnaval as Venezuela continues to collapse

“We will defeat the electricity war American imperialism has announced and orchestrated against our people,” he said on Twitter.

Jorge Rodríguez, the communications minister, went on the state channel TeleSur to denounce the “sabotage” of a power generator at the Guri Dam, one of the largest hydroelectric stations in the world.

Critics say the government has let a once impressive power grid decay because of corruption, poor maintenance and under investment.

Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader who more than 50 countries now recognize as Venezuela’s rightful president, said Maduro must resign so the electricity system can be restored.

“We have water, we have petrol, we have gas. But unfortunately we have a usurper in Miraflores [the presidential palace],” he tweeted.

When the blackout hit on Thursday at the peak of rush hour, chaos ensued on the streets of the capital Caracas as thousands of commuters were forced to leave the subway, The AP reported. Generators also shut down at some hospitals where nurses had to monitor vitals with candles.

“The person responsible for this is named Nicolás Maduro,” Pedro Fernandez, a 44-year-old systems engineer, told Reuters. “This is just the tip of the iceberg given all the things we’re suffering.”

Read more: A timeline of the political crisis in Venezuela, which began with claims of election rigging and has the US calling for regime change

Venezuela is engulfed in a humanitarian and political crisis. As empty supermarkets and soaring crime drive millions of refugees abroad, Guaidó is trying to unseat Maduro.

Earlier this week, the opposition leader returned to Venezuela after a 10 day exile despite government threats to arrest him.

He is currently trying to galvanize support among state employees, and is planning a public sector strike with union leaders. </s> CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Much of Venezuela, including parts of the capital Caracas, remained without power on Monday for a fifth day, crimping vital oil exports and leaving people struggling to obtain water and food.

President Nicolas Maduro, who has blamed the unprecedented blackout on sabotage by the United States at Venezuela's Guri hydroelectric dam, ordered the suspension of classes and the working day, as he had on Friday.

Sources in the oil sector, OPEC member Venezuela's main source of foreign earnings and a vital generator of revenue for Maduro's government, said that exports from the primary port of Jose had been halted by the blackouts.

The opposition-controlled congress called an emergency session to discuss the power cuts, blaming negligence by Maduro's socialist government.

Maduro's rule is being challenged by congress leader Juan Guaido, who in January invoked the constitution to assume the presidency after declaring Maduro's 2018 re-election a fraud. Guaido has been recognised as Venezuela's legitimate leader by the United States and most Western countries, but Maduro retains control of the armed forces and state institutions.

The blackout, which began Thursday afternoon, has heightened frustration among Venezuelans already suffering widespread food and medicine shortages, as the once-prosperous nation's economy suffers a hyperinflationary collapse.

Food has rotted in refrigerators, hospitals have struggled to keep equipment operating, and people have clustered on the streets of Caracas to pick up patchy telephone signals to reach relatives abroad. On Monday, people formed lines to fill containers with water from the streams cascading down the mountain overlooking Caracas.

"This is driving me crazy," said Naile Gonzalez in Chacaito, a commercial neighbourhood of Caracas. "The government doesn't want to accept that this is their fault because they haven't carried out any maintenance in years."

Experts consulted by Reuters believe the nationwide blackout originated in transmission lines that transport energy from the Guri hydroelectric plant to the Venezuelan south.

Venezuela's electricity network has suffered from years of underinvestment and lack of maintenance. Restrictions on imports have affected the provision of spare parts, while many skilled technical personnel have fled the country amid an exodus of more than 3 million Venezuelans in recent years.

Winston Cabas, the president of an electrical engineers' professional association, told reporters that several of the country's thermoelectric plants were operating at just 20 percent of capacity, in part due to lack of fuel. He said the government was rationing electricity, which explained why some parts of Caracas had power and others did not.

The process of restoring service was "complex" and could take between five and six days, he said.

"We once had the best electricity system in the world - the most vigorous, the most robust, the most powerful - and those who now administer the system have destroyed it."

A source at state oil company PDVSA also said the government had decided to ration electricity, in part to supply power to the Jose oil export terminal.

The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The collapse in crucial crude exports comes after the United States slapped sanctions on PDVSA in January in a bid to cut off cash to the government and oust Maduro from power. On Monday, it imposed sanctions on a Russian bank over its dealings with PDVSA.

"The United States will not stand idly by while foreign financial institutions facilitate illegitimate transactions that benefit Maduro and his cronies, and perpetuate the corruption that has devastated Venezuela," U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton wrote on Twitter.

The lack of electricity has aggravated a crisis in Venezuelan hospitals, already lacking investment and maintenance in addition to the shortage of medicines.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.

Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button. </s> Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says Washington, “desperate” over its defeats, is resorting to acts of sabotage against the country’s power system, including a “high-tech electromagnetic” attack that resulted in a massive power cut Monday.

Caracas and other parts of Venezuela were hit by a massive power cut on Monday, a few months after a similar nationwide blackout, which Maduro blamed on Washington as well.

The Monday blackout was caused by a “high-tech electromagnetic attack,” Maduro said Wednesday while addressing the opening of military exercises.

Sabotage at a hydroelectric plant that provides 80 percent of the country’s power has caused the outage, Maduro suggested, adding that the electricity system has suffered “dozens of attacks” over the last four months.

“The US imperialism is desperate because of its defeats in Venezuela,” Maduro said in the speech carried on radio and television, pinning the blame for the outages on the US government.

The Monday blackout reportedly left chaos on the streets of the capital as traffic lights lost power, and the metro stopped running, forcing many people to walk home from work.

While the government said power has been restored in much of Venezuela on Tuesday, opposition leader Juan Guaido denied that, saying that 16 of the country’s 23 states were still facing at least partial outages.

The blackout came a few months after another major outage in March 2019, which affected at least 18 of 23 Venezuelan states. That blackout was also blamed by Venezuelan authorities on anti-government saboteurs working for the United States.

Fifteen Venezuelan kids with kidney disease reportedly died after being unable to get dialysis during the power outage as President Maduro said at the time a cyber attack prevented authorities from restoring power. </s> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - A power outage left much of Venezuela in the dark early Thursday evening in what appeared to be one of the largest blackouts yet in a country where power failures have become increasingly common.

Crowds of commuters in capital city Caracas were walking home after metro service ground to a halt and traffic snarled as cars struggled to navigate intersections where stoplights were out.

State-owned electricity operator Corpoelec blamed the outage on an “attack” on the Guri Dam, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric projects and the cornerstone of Venezuela’s electrical grid.

“We’ve been targeted again in the power war,” Maj. Gen. Luis Motta, President Nicolas Maduro’s minister of electrical power, said in remarks aired on state television.

Pro-government officials frequently blame outages on Venezuela’s opposition, accusing them of attacking power substations with Molotov cocktails, though rarely providing evidence.

Motta did not indicate how much of the nation is engulfed in the outage, though local media reported that nearly all of Venezuela was experiencing a blackout. Motto said it would take “approximately three hours” for service to be restored, though patience was already running thin Thursday evening.

In one Caracas neighborhood, residents threw up their windows and began banging on pot and pans in a sign of protest while others shouted out expletives and Maduro’s name.

The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a power struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by about 50 nations as Venezuela’s rightful president. The opposition is blaming Maduro for the country’s soaring hyperinflation, food and medical shortages, while the embattled leader accuses Guaido of conspiring with the Trump administration to overthrow him from power.

Venezuela’s electrical system was once the envy of Latin America but it has fallen into a state of disrepair amidst years of poor maintenance and mismanagement. High-ranking officials have been accused in U.S. court proceedings of looting investments earmarked for the electrical system.

The government keeps home power bills exceptionally low - just a couple dollars a month - relying heavily on subsidies. </s> Electrical systems in Venezuela have been targeted by another cyberattack, President Nicholas Maduro has said. Caracas has accused the US of “sabotage”, while US officials blame local corruption and mismanagement for the blackout.

After a failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant left much of the country without power on Thursday night, Venezuelan authorities managed to restore power to “many parts” of the country. However, the country’s grid took another hammering on Saturday, with many of the restored systems knocked out once again, the country’s embattled president said.

Maduro said the systems had been nearly 70 percent restored when “we received another attack, of a cybernetic nature, at midday… that disturbed the reconnection process and knocked out everything that had been achieved until noon.”

Additionally, “one of the sources of generation that was working perfectly,” was also sabotaged, he added, accusing domestic “infiltrators of attacking the electric company from the inside.”

Authorities are now trying to restore the systems “manually,” while struggling to “diagnose why the computerized” systems failed on such a massive scale.

Earlier, unconfirmed reports suggested that 95 percent of the crisis-stricken country was again without power, after Sidor Substation in Bolivar state had allegedly exploded, spewing clouds of black smoke into the sky. The substation had reportedly been sustaining the country’s power supply since the Guri plant –which produces 80 percent of the country’s power– failed.

The Venezuelan government blamed Thursday’s blackout on US “sabotage.” President Nicolas Maduro accused Washington of waging an “electricity war” on the socialist state, while communication and information minister Jorge Rodriguez blamed the outage on a US-orchestrated cyberattack.

Meanwhile US officials, including a vocal proponent of regime change in Venezuela, Senator Marco Rubio, blamed the socialist policies of Maduro’s government for letting the country’s infrastructure crumble to breaking point. The Florida Republican claimed that the country’s union of electricity workers had predicted the blackout, accused Maduro of pocketing money that could have been used for repairs, and joked that he “must have pressed the wrong thing on the ‘electronic attack’ app I downloaded from Apple.”

Like this story? Share it with a friend! </s> Described by the Venezuelan government as an act of “sabotage”, cities such as Caracas were struck by the power outage. BNO News reports the outage started in the late afternoon and had affected all parts of the country. The blackout is the latest fiasco to strike the nation, which has been badly affected by an ongoing row between Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition leader Juan Guaido.

AFP news agency say that many businesses have been forced to shut down. The organisation adds that the government have called it “sabotage”. The country is still in darkness and officials are unable to confirm exactly when residents should expect power to be restored.

Maduro claims the US were behind the incident. He said: “The electric war announced and directed by US imperialism against our people will be defeated.” Power is generated at the country’s Guri Dam base in the Bolívar State. The supply is controlled by firm Corpoelec, which said on it Twitter it was working to restore it.
A major power blackout leaves most of Venezuela without electricity, including the capital Caracas. At least 18 of Venezuela's 23 states have reported blackouts. Venezuelan news website El Pitazo blames failures at Simón Bolívar hydroelectric plant; state TV blames anti-government saboteurs.