CARACAS, Sept 4 – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro Tuesday ordered the deployment of army troops to reinforce public security following a large-scale blackout across half the country.
The power outage occured around 12:30 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) at a transmission line in the main grid of the National Electricity Service, affecting the supply of electricity to Venezuela’s western and central regions.
Maduro said via Twitter that his government was working to resolve the situation and confirmed that Bolivarian National Armed Force troops would be deployed to bolster public security.
“I am on top of the situation, which has oddly and abruptly affected electricity service,” wrote Maduro. “We will be reporting and attending” to the problem.”
The head of state called on the public to cooperate with authorities while they investigate the causes of the outage, which he believed could be the result of sabotage by anti-government extremists.
“At this time, everything indicates the extreme right has resumed its plan of (carrying out) an electricity coup against the country,” said Maduro, adding that “we will defeat them.”
Minister of Electric Energy Jesse Chacon said authorities were working to fully restore electricity service and investigating the failure in the line.
In Caracas, thousands of subway passengers were temporarily trapped at several stations, and stores were forced to suspend service.
Transportation Minister Haiman El Troudi said six subway trains were trapped in tunnels, with thousands of passengers aboard. All were safely let out.
Franco Silva, deputy minister of Electricity Development and executive director of the National Electricity Corporation ( Corpoelec), said more than 10 states had been affected, including Zulia, Lara, Falcon, Tachira, Merida, Trujillo, Yaracuy, Portuguesa, Cojedes, Aragua and Carabobo, as well as part of metropolitan Caracas.
Silva said Corpoelec was working to normalise the service in affected states.
“We have undertaken several operations to restore service. It is partially restored in most of these states and we continue working to normalise it throughout the country,” Silva said.
– BERNAMA
