• 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> 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. </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> CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Much of Venezuela remained engulfed by darkness into early Friday amid one of the largest power outages in years, raising tensions in a country already on edge from ongoing political turmoil.

The blackout hit 22 of 23 states by some accounts. 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.

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.

At the darkened maternity ward at the Avila Clinic in wealthy eastern Caracas, several mothers cried as nurses holding candles monitored the vital signs of premature babies in incubators after backup generators shut off.

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

"A little bit of patience," Rodriguez urged on state television, saying service would be restored in a few hours. "If you're in your home, stay in your home. If you're in a protected space or at work, it's better for you to stay there."

But as night wore on in Caracas, patience was running thin.

Residents threw open their windows and banged pots and pans in the darkness. Some shouted out expletives at President Nicolas Maduro in a sign of mounting frustration. Normally hyperactive social media was eerily silent as much of the country was knocked offline.

By midnight Friday, power had yet to be restored in Caracas and many other areas.

The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, 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.

Guaido 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, using the hashtag #SinLuz, meaning without light. "Venezuela is clear that the light will return with the end of usurpation."

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.

While intermittent outages have become regular occurrences in Venezuela of late, rarely have so many states simultaneously been without power for such an extended period.

While authorities expressed concern about the sick and elderly, and a few people had to be rescued from elevators, some residents in Caracas expressed awe at the sight of stars hanging over the normally bustling city of 2 million.

The government keeps home power bills exceptionally low — just a couple dollars a month — relying heavily on subsidies from the Maduro administration, with is under increasing financial duress.

The nation is experiencing hyperinflation projected to reach a mind-boggling 10 million percent this year, is grappling with food and medical shortages and has lost about 10 percent of its population to migration in the past few years. Venezuela's economic woes are likely to increase as U.S. sanctions against its oil industry kick in.

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.

"What's the intention?" he said. "To submit the Venezuelan people to various days without electricity to attack, to mistreat, so that vital areas would be without power."

Pro-government officials often blame power outages on Venezuela's opposition, accusing them of attacking power substations with Molotov cocktails, though they rarely provide any evidence.

Rubio, who has been driving the Trump administration's confrontational stance toward Maduro, seemed to relish Rodriguez's accusations that he was somehow to blame for the power crisis.

"My apologies to people of Venezuela," the Florida Republican said in a message on Twitter. "I must have pressed the wrong thing on the 'electronic attack' app I downloaded from Apple. My bad." </s> CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans woke up to a fourth day of an unprecedented nationwide blackout on Sunday, leaving residents concerned about the impacts of the lack of electricity on the South American country’s health, communications and transport systems.

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro - who is facing a challenge to his rule by the leader of the opposition-led congress, Juan Guaido - has blamed the blackout on an act of “sabotage” by the United States at the Guri hydroelectric dam, but experts say it is the outcome of years of underinvestment.

Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent. He has been recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by the United States and most Western countries.

Despite pressure from frequent opposition marches and U.S. sanctions on the country’s vital oil sector, Maduro is not open to negotiations on ending the political impasse and seems intent on trying to stay put, said Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration’s envoy for Venezuela.

The blackout, which began Thursday afternoon, increased frustration among Venezuelans already suffering widespread food and medicine shortages, as the once-prosperous OPEC nation’s economy suffers a hyperinflationary collapse. Food rotted in refrigerators, people walked for miles to work with the Caracas subway down, and relatives abroad anxiously waited for updates from family members with telephone and internet signals intermittent.

“What can you do without electricity?” said Leonel Gutierrez, a 47-year-old systems technician, as he carried his six-month-old daughter on his way to buy groceries. “The food we have has gone bad.”

At hospitals, the lack of power combined with the absence or poor performance of backup generators led to the death of 17 patients across the country, non-governmental organization Doctors for Health said on Saturday. Reuters was unable to independently verify the figure, and the government’s Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Power returned briefly to parts of Caracas and other cities on Friday, but went out again around midday on Saturday.

The outage is by far the longest in decades. In 2013, Caracas and 17 of the country’s 23 states were hit by a six-hour blackout, while in 2018 eight states suffered a 10-hour power outage, government officials said at the time. </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> Video provided by Reuters

Thousands of activists have gathered across Venezuela to protest against a nationwide blackout, shortages of basic necessities and the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

As Venezuelan opposition protesters converged on a main avenue in Caracas and other parts of the country, supporters of Mr Maduro also held a rival demonstration that also drew a mass of people.

The rival demonstration saw people protesting against the US and its “brutal aggression” against the South American country.

Both rallies illustrated the ever-growing gulf between two factions now struggling for control of a nation paralysed by economic and political turmoil.

© Provided by Independent Digital News & Media Limited Supporters of acting president Juan Guaido demonstrate in Caracas (AFP/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, tensions were only compounded further by a new power shutdown that came just hours after an earlier blackout in the country appeared to be coming to an end.

Jorge Jaimes, a doctor who joined opposition protesters on Avenida Victoria in Caracas, said: "This is chaos. We are at the end of this road."

Opposition demonstrators earlier on Saturday pushed against the shields of riot police, who withdrew from the area but maintained a large presence.

© Provided by Independent Digital News & Media Limited Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido (AFP/Getty Images)

Some protesters elsewhere in the city said lines of police were blocking them from reaching the rally organised by opposition leader Juan Guaido, creating a sense of confusion as power and communications outages plagued the country.

Netblocks, a non-government group based in Europe that monitors internet censorship, said on Saturday a second outage had knocked out almost all of Venezuela's telecommunications infrastructure.

Earlier, it referred to online connectivity data indicating the initial outage that began on Thursday and eased about 24 hours later was the largest on recent record in Latin America.

Managers of the Caracas subway said they are still waiting for the electricity supply to stabilise before resuming services, but the power grid problems quickly became another issue that galvanised Venezuelans to take to the streets.

© Provided by Independent Digital News & Media Limited Supporters of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (REUTERS)

As the opposition-led rally got under way , police units and members of the National Guard were deployed at several intersections, wearing helmets and carrying shields and other anti-riot gear. Several columns of security forces moved on motorcycles.

Opposition activists said police had dismantled a speakers' stage that had been erected in the street ahead of the demonstration on Saturday, while Mr Guaido tweeted that authorities would fail in any attempt to scare protesters.

"Today we'll show them in the streets," he said.

Meanwhile, demonstrators at the pro-Maduro rally danced and waved flags on what organisers labelled a "day of anti-imperialism" in a show of defiance towards the United States, which has imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela in an attempt to oust the president.

Many showed up wearing red caps and shirts in support of the self-proclaimed "socialist revolution" of leader Hugo Chavez, who died six years ago and was succeeded by his protege, Mr Maduro.

Mr Maduro, who maintains that Mr Guaido is part of a US-backed plot to oust him, tweeted on Saturday that "each act of imperialist aggression will meet an overwhelming response".

© Provided by Independent Digital News & Media Limited Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (AFP/Getty Images)

In the last two days, Venezuelan government officials have blamed the United States for the nationwide blackout and said Mr Guaido collaborated in the alleged sabotage.

Mr Guaido and US officials scoff at that notion, attributing the blackout to alleged corruption and mismanagement under Mr Maduro's government.

The United States and about 50 other countries support Mr Guaido, 35, who has been unable to wrest power from Mr Maduro.

Mr Guaido, the leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, declared himself interim president of the country in late January.

Pictures: Venezuela crisis </s> Nearly all of Venezuela’s 23 states were plunged into darkness on Thursday afternoon after the most severe power cut in the country’s recent history.

The blackout continued all through Friday and into Saturday, as thousands of protesters turned out to support their respective leaders, who have been locked in a power struggle for the last two months since Juan Guaidó, who leads the opposition-controlled National Assembly, declared himself interim president on January 23rd.

Guaidó has been recognised as interim president by more than 50 countries, including the United States and most of Europe.

Russia, China, Turkey, Mexico, Bolivia and a number of other countries have reaffirmed their support for Maduro as Venezuela’s only legitimate president.

The blackout promptly became a point of dispute between President Maduro and the US-backed opposition trying to oust him.

Friday evening, Venezuela’s defence minister accused the US of masterminding the power cut.

In a televised address from the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Vladimir Padrino López claimed the US was behind a “criminal aggression” designed to “disrupt and attack” Maduro’s administration.

Maduro has also accused the opposition of sabotage while his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, condemned what she called an "imperial electrical war".

In response, Guaidó urged Venezuelans to demonstrate on Saturday "against the usurping, corrupt and incompetent regime that has put our country in the dark".

The self-declared interim president and the opposition blame the massive power cut on poor maintenance, under-investment and corruption.

Washington denies having a role in the electricity system collapse.

The nationwide power outage has reportedly been caused by problems at the Guri hydroelectric plant in the southern Bolivar state - one of the largest such facilities in Latin America.

The Guri hydroelectric plant supplies much of the country’s electricity.

On Friday, offices and school were closed to help efforts to restore electricity. Hospitals have also been affected as some medical facilities do not have emergency power generators.

Dr. Julio Castro, one of the leaders of the non-profit Doctors for Health, reported via a tweet that about half of 23 hospitals surveyed were grappling with failing generators.

In Caracas's University Hospital, 25-year-old patient Marielsi Aray died after her respirator stopped working.

Video footage posted on social media showed doctors trying to keep children breathing at

the capital’s Supreme Commander Hugo Chávez paediatric hospital after it lost power.

At a maternity ward in the capital Caracas an Associated Press reporter saw nurses use candles to monitor the vital signs of their premature babies as power failed.

On Saturday morning power supplies in Caracas appeared to be partially restored.

Traffic lights in some areas were back in action but the city's metro remained closed.

According to El Nacional newspaper, fourteen of Venezuela's 23 states are still affected by the outages.

The blackout has sparked fears of the human cost of the power cuts and that it could further destabilize the beleaguered country, sending it into a new turbulent period. </s> CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans woke up to a fourth day of an unprecedented nationwide blackout on Sunday, leaving residents concerned about the impacts of the lack of electricity on the South American country’s health, communications and transport systems.

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro - who is facing a challenge to his rule by the leader of the opposition-led congress, Juan Guaido - has blamed the blackout on an act of “sabotage” by the United States at the Guri hydroelectric dam, but experts say it is the outcome of years of underinvestment.

“The national electrical system has been subject to multiple cyberattacks,” Maduro wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “However, we are making huge efforts to restore stable and definitive supply in the coming hours.”

Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent. He has been recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by the United States and most Western countries.

Despite pressure from frequent opposition marches and U.S. sanctions on the country’s vital oil sector, Maduro is not open to negotiations on ending the political impasse and seems intent on trying to stay put, said Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration’s envoy for Venezuela.

The blackout, which began Thursday afternoon, increased frustration among Venezuelans already suffering widespread food and medicine shortages, as the once-prosperous OPEC nation’s economy suffers a hyperinflationary collapse. Food rotted in refrigerators, people walked for miles to work with the Caracas subway down, and relatives abroad anxiously waited for updates from family members with telephone and internet signals intermittent.

“What can you do without electricity?” said Leonel Gutierrez, a 47-year-old systems technician, as he carried his six-month-old daughter on his way to buy groceries. “The food we have has gone bad.”

Lines formed outside the few Caracas gas stations with open pumps, while many motorists stopped along the sides of highways to use their mobile phones in the few areas of the city with signal.

Some bakeries, supermarkets and restaurants were open and running on backup generators, according to Reuters witnesses. Many were asking customers to pay in U.S. dollar bills, since debit card payment systems were not working reliably and local bolivar notes have been scarce for years.

“Customers are buying drinks, batteries and cookies, but we are out of water,” said Belgica Zepeda, a salesperson at a Caracas pharmacy.

At hospitals, the lack of power combined with the absence or poor performance of backup generators led to the death of 17 patients across the country, non-governmental organization Doctors for Health said on Saturday. Reuters was unable to independently verify the figure, and the government’s Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Power returned briefly to parts of Caracas and other cities on Friday, but went out again around midday on Saturday. Electricity experts said that outage was most likely due to failures in the transmission system, and that the government lacks the equipment and staff to repair them.

“One can infer from the delays and the results of the failure that it was a problem in the lines that leave Guri, rather than in the plant itself,” said Miguel Lara, a former president of the state-run entity responsible for the electricity system.

The outage is by far the longest in decades. In 2013, Caracas and 17 of the country’s 23 states were hit by a six-hour blackout, while in 2018 eight states suffered a 10-hour power outage, government officials said at the time.
Whilst a nationwide power blackout continues, Acting President Juan Guaidó calls for protests in the capital of Venezuela.