A massive power outage affected millions of Argentines in several provinces and part of Buenos Aires this Wednesday for at least two hours, after a fire that caused a failure in the high-voltage system, on a day of torrid heat, according to the authorities.
Source: AFP
“The blackout is big, it affects several provinces. At a time of high temperature as it was today in a large part of the country, the electricity sector demanded 25,000 megawatts and there was a cut that removed some 9,000 megawatts. This caused the system to be broken”, explained the Undersecretary of Energy, Santiago Yanotti, in statements to the C5N channel.
The origin of the cut would have been un fire that broke out in a field 60 km north of Buenos Aires, near high voltage lines, that connect to the Atucha 1 nuclear power plant, the official said.
Then, as a security measure, The Atucha I and Central Puertos electricity generation plants went out of service, Nucleoeléctrica, the national nuclear electricity company, clarified on Twitter. This measure affected the power supply in large areas of the country.
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In the city of Buenos Aires, vSeveral neighborhoods were temporarily without electrical service and the cut affected the metro network, rail services and hundreds of traffic lights, although little by little they were recovering their energy, in a day with temperatures that exceeded 36 degrees Celsius.
“In the Aeroparque Metropolitano and the Ezeiza International Airport there were microcuts that did not interrupt services,” the source reported.
The company AySA, which supplies running water and sewage in Buenos Aires and its periphery, asked the population make “rational use of water”, due to the fact that the drinking water distribution system is electrically dependent and is without power, in a statement.
There were no reports of official figures, but the power outage spread to different cities in the provinces of Santa Fe and Córdoba (center), the Cuyo region (west), Patagonia (south) and the Northwest of the country, he indicated to AFP a government source.
“The service is being restored little by little and we hope to have the service restored in a few hours,” said Yanotti.
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Meanwhile, yesThe two dams in the south of the country and the Yacyretá dam remained in service and with good generation. (northeast), Yanotti specified.
The incident occurred as Argentina is going through its ninth heat wave this summer. The capital is experiencing its hottest summer since records began in 1961, according to the weather service.
