At 3:00 p.m., nearly 30% of the electricity supply had been restored in the Dominican Republic, after the massive blackout that affected a large part of the national territory since the early hours of this Monday.
The information was offered by Joel Adrián Santos Echavarría, Minister of Energy and Mines, who indicated that, preliminarily, the major failure in the National Electrical System (SENI) began with a trip of the switch on the 138 kilovolt (kV) Hainamosa–Villa Duarte line.
“We must say that, a few hours before the event, we have about 30% of the total system supplied and we will continue in this advanced process. It must be said that the first steps are always the most difficult; the faster the rest of the country will be integrated,” declared the official.
He pointed out that essential services such as hospitals, drinking water systems, airports and urban transportation in general, for the most part, have operated quite regularly with their backup systems. “In fact, I must also add that the country’s traffic light system has worked with great regularity,” Santos emphasized.
Likewise, he stressed that the main objective is to completely restore the service, to later carry out a detailed investigation into the main causes of this situation.
“The technical causes require an investigation; we are already moving in that direction. But clearly our work is focused first on restoring the service, which is our priority,” he said.
In addition, he guaranteed that in the next few hours they will be made known so that the population has all the information as the system is restored.
