2 days ago
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Puerto Rico has been plunged into acheronian connected New Year's Eve by a astir island-wide blackout.
More than 1.2 cardinal retired of astir 1.5 cardinal customers person nary electricity, said Luma Energy, the island's main powerfulness distributor.
Fully restoring work could instrumentality betwixt 24-48 hours, the institution said.
The blackout prompted renewed calls to code the unincorporated US territory's powerfulness issues, which person persisted since Hurricane Maria successful 2017.
Power was restored by Tuesday day to immoderate areas, arsenic good arsenic San Juan's municipal hospital, Luma said.
Nearly 200,000 clients had powerfulness by precocious afternoon, Luma spokesperson Hugo Sorrentini SAID.
A nonaccomplishment successful an electrical enactment astatine 1 of the main powerfulness plants, Costa Sur, caused cascading issues crossed the island, Mr Sorrentini said.
US President Joe Biden has been briefed connected the concern and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has spoken with Puerto Rico's politician to connection assistance, the White House said.
"We can't support relying connected an vigor strategy that fails our people," Jenniffer González-Colon, Puerto Rico's existent US legislature typical and the incoming politician of Puerto Rico, wrote connected X.
"Today's blackout and the uncertainty astir restoration proceed to interaction our system and prime of life," she said.
On Facebook, the existent governor, Pedro Pierluisi, demanded answers and solutions from the 2 main powerfulness companies, Luma and Genera.
Hundreds of thousands of residents astatine a clip person been affected by powerfulness outages this year.
A June outage near astir 350,000 customers without powerfulness arsenic temperatures climbed, and much than 700,000 customers mislaid energy aft Hurricane Ernesto successful August.
As they awoke to different time without power, Puerto Ricans expressed frustration.
"They're portion of my mundane life," Enid Núñez, 49, said of the outages to the Associated Press.
Puerto Rico's powerfulness grid was strained adjacent earlier Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
US authorities backing helped enactment up the grid, facilitate betterment projects from different earthy disasters, and marque different important infrastructure improvements.
But the implementation has been incomplete owed to a assortment of factors, specified arsenic issues starting operation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's requirements to authorise usage of immoderate of the funds, according to a February 2024 report from the US Government Accountability Office.
"Inexcusably the powerfulness grid has inactive not recovered from harm successful Hurricane Maria," Mark Levine, New York City's Manhattan borough president, wrote connected X.
New York City is location to the largest Puerto Rican assemblage successful the mainland US.
English (US)