Caracas, Aug 30 (EFE).- With connectivity problems and a large police and military surveillance operation, Venezuela has experienced this Friday the longest blackout since March 2019 – when the oil-producing nation spent several days in the dark – after suffering an electrical failure that altered the daily life of the country, at a time when it is going through a political crisis.
After half a day without electricity, the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) said that authorities were gradually restoring service, although some Internet users reported fluctuations in various areas, as well as new outages in communities where power had been restored.
A disconnected country
According to official information, The failure was recorded at 4:50 local time (8:50 GMT) due to a “sabotage” that left Caracas and the country’s 23 states without electricity, some of which suffer power outages or fluctuations in service almost daily.
Organizations such as Ve Sin Filtro reported that, on averageInternet connection dropped to 20% nationwide, meaning that 8 out of 10 Venezuelans were left, at least for a few hours, without being able to access social networks, digital payment methods and electronic communication channels.
The blackout, in addition, limited – in some cases completely – the telephone signal, and put subway transportation out of service as well as thousands of traffic lights, which resulted in a traffic and pedestrian chaos, especially for those who went to work despite the power failure.
In Caracas, EFE confirmed that hundreds of people moved to some parts of the city in search of a telephone signal or Internet connection.
The usual suspects
From the first statements, the authorities pointed to opposition leader María Corina Machado and the standard-bearer of the largest anti-Chavez bloc, Edmundo González Urrutia, as the alleged perpetrators of this “criminal attack,” without providing evidence.
The Ministers of Communication and Interior, Freddy Ñáñez and Diosdado Cabello, respectively, denounced that the blackout is part of a “coup plan” for which they accuse opposition leaders, while warning that “there will be justice” in this case.
This Friday, González Urrutia was due to appear before the Prosecutor’s Office – which has summoned him on three occasions – to testify in connection with an investigation against him, after the anti-Chavez leader claimed that he won the presidential elections on July 28, contrary to the official result, which gave victory to Nicolás Maduro, which has not been recognized by many countries.
Normality under surveillance
In view of the contingency, the Armed Forces activated a plan “to cover any situation at a national level,” explained the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, who highlighted the deployment of “a hundred officers” to help resolve the blackout, and that there has been no disturbance of public order.
The military, which according to the government is permanently monitoring the electrical installations, is seeking to preserve “normality,” a narrative reinforced in each VTV report, which has shown the restoration of electricity in some sectors and reiterates the accusations against the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD).
According to the Executive, hospitals are operating without incident – a claim that was refuted by various citizens through social networks – as are airports, where power plants have been activated to ensure the continuity of operations.
During the first half of the year, 397 protests were recorded across the country due to power outages, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict.
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2024-08-31 07:30:45
