Ecuador was gripped by a nationwide blackout on Wednesday afternoon, the country’s public works minister said, blaming the emergency on the failure of a key transmission line.
Minister Roberto Luque said: In a statement from X He received a report from the national electricity operator, CENACE, that “there were failures in transmission lines, resulting in cascading blackouts and, therefore, the inability to provide energy services throughout the country.”
He said authorities were working to resolve the power outage “as quickly as possible.”
The South American nation of 18 million people has been grappling with an energy crisis for years. Dilapidated infrastructure, poor maintenance and reliance on imported energy have led to rolling blackouts — though none as widespread as this one.
Most Ecuador residents found themselves without power around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday.
The country gets most of its energy from neighboring Colombia, which has struggled to produce enough electricity to meet its domestic consumption.
The $2.25 billion Chinese hydroelectric dam, the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, was supposed to help solve Ecuador’s problems. Located on the Coca River in Napo Province, 62 miles east of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, the dam is Ecuador’s largest energy project.
