(26 Mar 2019) A new power outage spread across much of Venezuela on Monday, knocking communications offline and stirring fears of a repeat of the chaos almost two weeks ago during the nation's largest-ever blackout.
The outage began shortly after 1 p.m. (1700 GMT) and appeared to have affected as many as 16 of Venezuela's 23 states, according to reports on social media.
As with the previous outage, the government of President Nicolas Maduro sought to blame US-backed opponents, accusing them of sabotaging the Guri dam, source of the bulk of Venezuela's electricity.
They said the "attack" had already been controlled, with service restored in many areas and others expected to come online in the coming hours.
But those reassurances, similar to ones last time around, did little to calm the anger of residents in Caracas who filled traffic-clogged streets as they walked home after subway service in the capital was suspended
Netblocks, a non-government group based in Europe that monitors internet censorship, said outage had knocked offline around 57 percent of Venezuela's telecommunications infrastructure.
The Trump administration, which has made no secret of its desire to remove Maduro, has denied any role in the outages.
Electricity experts and opposition leader Juan Guaido faulted years of government graft and incompetence.
Meanwhile, as Venezuela's economic and political crisis deepens, many seem resigned to continuous disruptions in their daily routines.
The US and dozens of other countries support Guaido, who says Maduro's re-election last year was rigged.
Maduro alleges the US and Guaido are plotting a coup.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
