Nationwide massive blackout in Venezuela
In Venezuela, it came on early Thursday evening to a large-scale power outage. This was reported by several local media and eyewitnesses in social networks. The failure affected next to the capital Caracas 15 out of the 23 states in the country, as emerged from the messages. A state television reporter spoke of a nationwide blackout. In Caracas it came to traffic chaos: in the middle of the rush hour traffic the metro fell off, numerous traffic lights did not function.
Energy Minister Luis Motta attributed the incident to an alleged sabotage attack on a hydroelectric power station. He did not provide any evidence for that. "We were attacked again in the current war," said Motta on state television. The supply should be restored in a few hours. The state electricity company Corpoelec also made an "attack" for the failure. Minister Luis Motta is known for spreading his state conspiracy theories. In the past it was either the USA, Columbia, or even Iguanas.
Information Minister Jorge Rodríguez also spoke of sabotage, blaming enemies of the socialist government of ruler Nicolás Maduro for the blackout. "The goal was to cut off the Venezuelan people from power for several days," he said. "That will not succeed these criminals."
Daniel Di Martino, a Young Voices contributor response to that on Twitter:
“Maduro keeps blaming iguanas and not the fact that Chávez nationalized the electricity system 12 years ago.” “Guess what? When the government owns something the incentive is to make it "free". Free electricity for everyone became electricity for no one.”
On social media, many used the hashtag #SinLuz, or Without Light, to share photos and video of cities in nearly total darkness, and of Venezuelans, unable to use public transportation, walking in large numbers through city streets lit only by car headlights. Local news reports showed large traffic jams caused by failed traffic lights.
These are the consequences of the so-called "Democratic socialism of the 21st century".
Follow up... https://ftn.media/still-no-electricity-venezuela-situation-getting-worse
FTN Editorial Team Latin America
