Santiago, Chile – A wide blackout hit Chile on Tuesday, extends to travelers, eliminating traffic lights, paralyzing countless businesses and leaving millions of people throughout the South American nation without power.
The National Electric Coordinator, the Chilean Network Operator said that an interruption had occurred in a high voltage transmission line that transports energy from the Atacama desert of Northern Chile to the capital of Santiago in the central valley of the country .
He did not say what really caused the interruption that led a large part of the country’s power network to the closure, from the most northern Chilean port of Arica to the agricultural region of the southern Lagos.
The National Disaster Response Service of Chile, Senapred, reported that an “interruption in the supply of electricity” had caused a “mass blackout” in 14 of the 16 regions of the country, including Santiago, a city of about 8.4 million of people, where the authorities said there. It would not be a subway service until new notice.
Interior Minister Carolina Tohá said that hospitals, prisons and government buildings were changing backup generators to maintain the essential equipment in operation.
At a press conference, Tohá urged the public to keep calm and said that officials were running to put the network in operation and restore the electrical service throughout the country of some 19 million people.
“It is affecting the entire country’s electrical system,” he said about the 500 kV trunk transmission line.
Tohá said that if all areas did not return to normal at sunset, the government would take emergency measures to avoid a crisis.
Saesa, one of the main electricity distributors in the country, which serves more than one million people in Chile, confirmed that all its customers had experienced the energy failure.
The authorities said they were evacuating passengers of dark tunnels and subway stations in Santiago and other parts of the country, including the Valparaíso coastal tourist access point.
The videos on social networks throughout Chile, a long film from a country that extends more than 2,600 miles along the South Pacific coast, showed chaos at the intersections without traffic lights in operation, the people who have to use Your mobile phones as torches in the underground subway and police police. Sent to help evacuate office buildings.
The Minister of Transportation, Juan Carlos Muñoz, urged people to stay at home, saying that “it is not a good time to leave since we have a transport system that does not work normally.” At most, he said, only 27% of the city’s traffic lights are working.
Mobile phone services also blink outside line in parts of the country. The authorities of the Santiago International Airport said the terminals had changed to emergency energy to keep the flights in operation as usual.
