Power outage stoking tensions
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hospitals struggled to get generators running, businesses shuttered and families tried to contact loved ones amid Venezuela’s worst-ever power outage Friday, raising tensions in a country on edge from ongoing turmoil.
Much of the nation of 31 million people was still without electricity as the blackout stretched into a second day.
“This has never happened before,” a frustrated Orlando Roa, 54, said, decrying President Nicolas Maduro’s administration for failing to maintain the electrical system and letting qualified engineers leave the country. “This is the fault of the government.”
Maduro ordered schools and all government entities closed and told businesses not to open to facilitate work crews trying to restore power.
The blackout was reported to have hit 22 of 23 states, striking during the peak of evening rush hour Thursday, sending thousands on long nighttime treks home through some of the world’s most violent streets. Until now, Caracas had been spared the worst of a collapse in the nation’s grid and the outage was still wreaking havoc more than 18 hours after it began.
Venezuela’s socialist government blamed the power failure on right-wing extremists taking orders from the United States, including Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, and said they were intent on causing pandemonium for several days, but offered no proof.
“The electricity war declared and directed by the imperialist United States against our people will be overcome!” President Nicolas Maduro wrote on Twitter in his only public comments on the outage. “No one can defeat the people of Bolivar and Chavez. Maximum unity patriots!”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shot back saying only Maduro was to blame.
“Maduro’s policies bring nothing but darkness,” Pompeo wrote on social media. “No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro.”
The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, the head of congress who declared himself the nation’s rightful president in January and is recognized by about 50 nations.
Guaido did a survey of Caracas Friday to evaluate the impact of the blackout, blaming Maduro for the sorry state of affairs and looking to capitalize on what some decried as a sign of Venezuela’s newfound status as a “failed state” even though it sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves.