CARACAS: A blackout left most of Venezuela without power on Friday in what authorities blamed on sabotage of the national electrical grid — the latest crisis to hit the oil-rich country after a disputed presidential election.

Venezuela experiences frequent blackouts, which President Nicolas Maduro’s government routinely attributes to unproven conspiracies to overthrow him.

“We are reporting that at approximately 4:40am (0840 GMT) today, an electrical sabotage took place in Venezuela ... which has affected almost the entire national territory,” Communications Minister Freddy Nanez said.

“All 24 states reported total or partial loss of electricity supply,” he said.

The worst countrywide outage to strike Venezuela, in March 2019, lasted several days.

“It’s complicated to get around without electricity. We don’t know what’s going to happen during the day,” said Anyismar Aldana, a 27-year-old cashier on her way to work in Caracas, in the working-class neighbourhood of Petares. “People are afraid that it will happen again (like in 2019).”

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2024