Millions of Argentines are left without electricity due to blackouts in various provinces

First modification: 03/02/2023 – 11:00Last modification: 03/02/2023 – 10:58

“The blackout is big, 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. This caused the system to be broken “, explained the Undersecretary of Energy, Santiago Yanotti, in statements to the C5N channel.

The origin of the outage was a fire that broke out at 4:00 p.m. local time (7:00 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.

Then, as a security measure, the Atucha I and Central Puertos electricity generation plants went out of service, Nucleoeléctrica, the national nuclear electricity company, clarified on Twitter. This measure affected the power supply in large areas of the country.

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 could fall within the crimes of arson and havoc”, when expressing his “certainty about the intentionality” of what happened.

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.

“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.

“Service is being restored little by little and we hope to have the service restored in a few hours,” said Yanotti.

Meanwhile, the two dams in the south of the country and the one in Yacyretá (northeast) remained in service and with good generation, Yanotti said.

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.