02.03.2023
Entire neighborhoods were left without power in Buenos Aires, where the metro network and rail services were disrupted. The cuts affected the provinces of Santa Fe, Mendoza and Córdoba, the Cuyo region and Patagonia.
A massive power cut affected millions of Argentines this Wednesday (03.01.2023) in several provinces and part of Buenos Aires, following a fire that caused a failure in the high voltage system, on a day of torrid heat, according to the authorities.
“The blackout is large, it affects several provinces. At a time of high temperatures as it was today in a large part of the country, the electricity sector demanded 25,000 megawatts and there was a cut that removed some 9,000 megawatts,” explained the Undersecretary of Energy, Santiago Yanotti, in statements to the C5N channel.
The local newspapers Clarín and La Nación highlighted that the blackout affected some 20 million users on a day of extreme heat.
Fire near high voltage lines
The origin of the outage was a fire that broke out at 4:00 p.m. local time (8:00 p.m. GMT) in a field 60 km north of Buenos Aires, near the high-voltage lines that connect to the Atucha 1 nuclear power plant, the official said.
In the city of Buenos Aires, several neighborhoods were temporarily without electricity service and the cut affected the metro network, railway services and hundreds of traffic lights, although power was gradually restored, on a day with temperatures that exceeded 36 degrees. Celsius.
Metro users wait for the train service to be restored in Buenos Aires.
“In the Aeroparque Metropolitano and the Ezeiza International Airport there were microcuts that did not interrupt services,” the source reported.
The AySA company, which supplies running water and sewage in Buenos Aires and its periphery, asked the population to make “rational use of water” in a statement.
They look for the culprits
There were no reports of official figures, but the power outage spread to different cities in the provinces of Santa Fe and Córdoba (center), the Cuyo region (west), Patagonia (south) and the Northwest of the country, he told AFP a government source.
“Service is being restored little by little and we hope to have the service restored in a few hours,” said Undersecretary Yanotti.
In a note addressed Wednesday night to the Campana Federal Court, with jurisdiction in the area, the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, asked to “investigate, prosecute and, where appropriate, arrest those responsible for the very serious events that might fall within the crimes of arson and havoc”, when expressing his “certainty regarding the intentionality” of what happened.
The incident occurred as Argentina is going through its ninth heat wave this summer. The capital is experiencing its hottest summer since records began in 1961, according to the weather service.
jc (afp, efe, Clarín, La Nación)