A widespread power outage occurred in Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening, leaving greater than 340,000 people without electricity after two power plants within the US territory closed.
The capital, San Juan, and neighboring communities reminiscent of Bayamón, Caguas and Carolina were without electricity.
Luma Energy, which operates power transmission and distribution for Puerto Rico’s utility, said on X that the outage was attributable to an issue with the facility plants’ transmission lines. The company told the Associated Press that it was investigating the outage, which coincided with the shutdown of kit owned by Genera PR, which operates and maintains state-owned power generation facilities.
Governor Pedro Pierluisi condemned the facility outage and said he demands answers and solutions from Luma and Genera PR.
“The events in our power grid in recent weeks are unacceptable,” he wrote on X. “It is true that we have old power plants and power lines in a terrible state, but people continue to suffer the consequences of the private operators’ lack of awareness of what to do.”
Both Luma and Genera PR were chosen as private operators under Pierluisi’s government.
The outage is the newest in a series of blackouts in Puerto Rico, which remains to be attempting to rebuild its power grid after it was devastated by Hurricane Maria as a Category 4 storm in 2017.
The power outage prompted the mayor of the capital city of San Juan, Miguel Romero, to declare a state of emergency late Wednesday night and accuse Luma of providing insufficient information concerning the ongoing power outages.
“There are thousands of children with special nutritional needs, as well as older adults, who often require therapeutic devices to protect their health and often save their lives,” the decree states.
Many Puerto Ricans condemned the recent blackout on social media and called for Luma’s removal, mentioning that it got here against the backdrop of utmost heat warnings. Not everyone on the island of three.2 million people and a poverty rate of over 40% can afford generators or solar panels.
