Chile’s government has declared a state of emergency following a massive power outage that left millions without energy and plunged the capital Santiago into darkness.
The country’s largest blackout in years occurred due to a high-voltage transmission line breakdown in Chile’s north, according to Interior Minister Carolina Toha, who ruled out sabotage.
In a late-night television speech to the nation on Tuesday, Chilean President Gabriel Boric said the outage had affected eight million homes, which he blamed on private corporations.
Chile’s national disaster response service, Senapred, said 14 of the country’s 16 regions were affected.
Chile’s government has established a curfew from 10pm to 6am on Wednesday (01:00 to 09:00 GMT) from the northernmost port of Arica to the southern region of Los Lagos.
The Ministry of the Interior has deployed armed forces across the country – which stretches 4,300km (more than 2,600 miles) along the southern Pacific coast – to maintain order.
As of 10pm (01:00 GMT), only about a quarter of the country’s electrical grid demand was back online, said Juan Carlos Olmedo, the board president of Chile’s National Electricity Coordinator (CEN).
Olmedo added that power could be fully restored by morning.
CEN Executive Director Ernesto Huber said the body had “activated several power stations, mainly hydroelectric stations” to try and meet demand in the meantime.
Juan Carlos Munoz, Chile’s transport minister, urged people to stay home, warning that just approximately 27% of Santiago’s traffic lights were operational.
Terminals of Santiago’s Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport are powered by emergency generators, and flights are functioning normally.
Global metal markets were shocked when big copper mines in northern Chile, the world’s largest producer, ceased operations due to the outage.
