Grid Collapse
June 16, 2019, 5:35 AM PDT Updated on June 16, 2019, 5:53 AM PDT
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A huge power failure cut off electricity in Argentina and Uruguay on Sunday morning, according to media reports and a regional utility.
Parts of Brazil and Paraguay also were affected, the BBC reported. The outage hit on a day of provincial elections in parts of Argentina.
A “massive failure in the electrical interconnection system” left “all of Argentina and Uruguay without power,” Edesur Argentina, a power company serving more than 2.5 million customers, said on Twitter. Argentina’s government is assessing what caused the outage, which was triggered by a grid failure at 7:07 a.m. local time, the Energy Ministry said in a statement.
Power is gradually being restored, starting with an initial 34,000 customers, Edesur said in a subsequent tweet.
Electricity in Buenos Aires and the greater capital area is also coming back online. “The process of normalization, which will require several hours, is beginning,” according to Edesur.
Argentina, South America’s second-largest economy, shrank 2.5% last year, the worst since 2014 when the nation defaulted on its debt.
