{"id":76765,"date":"2024-06-19T22:41:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T22:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/ecuador-hit-by-nationwide-blackout\/"},"modified":"2024-06-19T22:41:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T22:41:07","slug":"ecuador-hit-by-nationwide-blackout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/ecuador-hit-by-nationwide-blackout\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecuador Hit by Nationwide Blackout"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/newsgraphics\/images\/icons\/defaultPromoCrop.png?fit=1200,630&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ecuador Hit by Nationwide Blackout\" title=\"Ecuador Hit by Nationwide Blackout\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ecuador was plunged into a nationwide blackout on Wednesday afternoon, and the country\u2019s public works minister blamed the emergency on a failure of a key transmission line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The minister, Roberto Luque, said <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RobertoLuqueN\/status\/1803531032978661816\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">in a statement on X<\/a> that he had received a report from the national electricity operator, CENACE, about \u201ca failure in the transmission line that caused a cascade disconnection, so there is no energy service nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said the authorities were working to resolve the outage \u201cas quickly as possible.\u201d Within hours, power had begun to return to some parts of Quito, the capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The South American country of 18 million people has been struggling with an energy crisis for several years. Failing infrastructure, a lack of maintenance and a dependence on imported energy have all contributed to rolling blackouts \u2014 though none have been as widespread as this one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, the majority of Ecuadoreans found themselves without power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Most of the country\u2019s energy comes from neighboring Colombia, a nation that has struggled to generate enough power for its own domestic consumption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A $2.25 billion Chinese-built hydroelectric power plant, the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, was supposed to help solve Ecuador\u2019s problem. Located on the Coca River in the province of Napo, 62 miles east of Quito, it is the largest energy project in Ecuador.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The project has instead become a major headache for the Ecuadorean authorities. There have been several construction errors leading to a legal dispute between Ecuadorean officials and the Chinese company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The country woke up to widespread blackouts back in April, which the Energy Ministry attributed to historically low water flows after an extended drought, rising temperatures and a lack of maintenance of the country\u2019s electrical system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For weeks afterward, the ministry imposed daily power cuts that lasted several hours. President Daniel Noboa declared an energy emergency, ordered businesses and government offices to shut down for several days and demanded the resignation of the energy minister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The blackouts ceased in mid-May, and Mr. Luque, who also serves as the acting energy minister, said on June 7 that the risk of power outages had been mitigated. But that assurance was short-lived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On June 16, parts of Quito were again plunged into darkness. Three days later, a blackout struck the entire country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Wednesday evening, the sound of cars honking and drivers shouting filled the streets of Quito and the port city of Guayaquil as traffic lights stopped working and vehicles overwhelmed the cities\u2019 streets. The public transit systems and some water supply companies suspended services in both major cities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The mayor of Quito <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/pabelml\/status\/1803532126802870524\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">expressed surprise on X<\/a> that the blackout had affected the city\u2019s subway system, which uses an \u201cisolated\u201d power source.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe event must be very significant to have affected even the power in the Quito metro,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Thal\u00ede Ponce<!-- --> contributed reporting from Guayaquil, Ecuador.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/19\/world\/americas\/ecuador-nationwide-blackout.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ecuador was plunged into a nationwide blackout on Wednesday afternoon, and the country\u2019s public works minister blamed the emergency on a failure of a key transmission line. The minister, Roberto Luque, said in a statement on X that he had received a report from the national electricity operator, CENACE, about \u201ca failure in the transmission [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/newsgraphics\/images\/icons\/defaultPromoCrop.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54602,25197,1028,232],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76767,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76765\/revisions\/76767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}