Tens of millions of people across South America were almost completely in the dark early on Sunday in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay shortly after 7 am on Sunday. It described as the collapse of a “key interconnection system”.
Public transport was halted, shops closed, traffic lights went dark and the water supply was also affected. Hospitals and some airports were running on generators and there were long queues at petrol stations.
The Argentine president called it an “unprecedented” failure in the countries’ interconnected power grid and has promised a full investigation.
officials say, Power has been restored to more than 80% of customers in Argentina . Uruguay’s energy company, UTE, said power had been restored to 88% of customers.
The combined population of Argentina and Uruguay is about 48 million people. Patients dependent on home medical equipment were urged to go to hospitals with generators.
The power failure came on a day when parts of Argentina were heading to the polls for local elections. Argentine voters were forced to cast ballots by the light of cellphones in gubernatorial elections.
“A massive failure in the electrical interconnection system left all of Argentina and Uruguay without power,” electricity supply company Edesur said.
Alejandra Martinez, a spokeswoman for Edesur, said “there is a complete blackout in Argentina. She told This is the first time something like this has happened across the entire country.”
Argentina’s Energy Minister Gustavo Lopetegui insisted that the country’s electrical system was “very robust,” but added that the exact cause of this failure was unclear.
“At the moment we’re not ruling out any possibility. But we don’t think it is down to a cyber attack,” he told reporters.
>Juthy Saha
