The Chilean government imposed a curfew and declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in response to a drastic blackout that cuts electricity in most of the country, including the capital Santiago.
The massive outage that began in the afternoon affected 8 million households nationwide, from port cities in northern Arica to Los Lagos in the south, officials said. In Santiago, they knocked out traffic lights, left people behind in elevators, and closed the subway network.
Hours later, the government announced a curfew from 10pm to 6am in areas affected by the suspension. Schools in these areas were closed Wednesday, affecting around 300,000 students, authorities said.
“Today has been a difficult day for millions of fellow people,” President Gabriel Borick said at a press conference Tuesday night.
By late Tuesday, electricity had recovered to around 4 million households, Borik said. However, he warned that his recovery was slow and unstable, and that the situation would remain unstable.
He allowed outages to occur and previously denounced the country's utilities for not restoring electricity, adding, “This is outrageous.” The outage was caused by a failure in the transmission system, officials said.
Soldiers and national police officers were sent to affected areas, officials said, and in Santiago helicopters were surrounded by the city.
According to the National Disaster Administration, emergency services, hospitals, prisons, prisons and airports were operated with backup power systems and generators.
John Bartlett Reports of contributions.
