A major power outage struck Chile on Tuesday afternoon, affecting nearly all regions of the country. The blackout, which lasted for several hours, left almost 19 million people without electricity, with 98% of households affected.
Chile’s Interior Minister, Carolina Tohá, attributed the outage to a technical fault in a high-voltage transmission line in the north, which triggered a chain reaction affecting a 3,000-kilometer stretch of the country from north to south.
After the four-hour blackout, President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency in the affected regions and imposed a curfew from 22:00 on Tuesday to 06:00 on Wednesday. The government also deployed 3,000 soldiers to reinforce the police in the capital, Santiago, to prevent potential crimes in the aftermath of the massive power outage.
The citizens of Santiago were particularly affected, as the metro system collapsed just before the evening rush, leaving passengers to be evacuated from stranded trains. Eyewitnesses shared videos on social media of dark metro stations.
Thousands of people had to switch to buses, which quickly became overcrowded. The traffic situation was extremely challenging, as traffic lights were also out of operation. The blackout also disrupted the mobile phone network.
The power outage had a negative impact on Chile’s copper mining industry, with production halted in several mines.
By 22:00 local time, power had been restored to four of the 19 million affected people and by midnight, 90% of private consumers had electricity again.