The Minister of Energy of Ecuador, Roberto Luque, reported this Wednesday that the entire country faces cuts in the electricity supply due to “a transmission line failure” that has caused a “cascading disconnection.”
“We are concentrating all our efforts on solving the problem as quickly as possible,” added Minister Luque on his official profile on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.
The situation is such that the Metropolitan Transit Agency of the capital, Quito, reported that The lack of electricity affects more than a thousand traffic lights. More than 500 officers have been deployed in the city to direct traffic.
Ecuador faced a series of outages in the electricity supply system in mid-April, which led to a crisis within the Ministry of Energy, culminating in the departure of the then head of the area, Andrea Arrobo.
These new blackouts occur just a few days after Luque ruled out the possibility of new cuts in supply at the national level, thus downplaying the importance of cessation of activity of at least three hydroelectric plants due to torrential rains.
“Due to a general failure of the national interconnected electrical energy system, “The operation of the Quito Metro is interrupted while the systems are restarted and verified.”said the operator of the underground transportation network.
According to online media, the “massive blackout” has affected several regions of the country and the lack of electricity has been confirmed in cities such as Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca and Mantaamong other.
Around 3:20 p.m. local time (8:20 p.m. GMT), the massive power outage surprised Ecuadorians. About an hour later, electricity gradually returned to the capital, according to the news agency. AFP.
The mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, pointed out in “I have arranged the activation of all reaction teams of the Municipality of Quito so that they join in facilitating mobility, preventing accidents at the main intersections and taking care of public spaces,” he added.
In the port of Guayaquil (southwest of the country and second city of Ecuador), The drinking water company called on the population to “take measures and stock up,” while the tram in the Andean city of Cuenca also had to suspend service.
Ecuador suffered scheduled blackouts of up to 13 hours last April due to a prolonged drought that reduced reservoirs to a minimum. The cuts ended in May with the return of the rains.
(With information from AFP, EFE, EP and Reuters)
