Chile declares emergency as power outage plunges country into darkness

After a devastating power outage that left millions of people without electricity and plunged Santiago into darkness, Chile’s government declared a state of emergency.

Tuesday’s widespread blackout, the country’s largest in years, was caused by a high-voltage transmission line failure in Chile’s north, Interior Minister Carolina Toha said, ruling out sabotage.

Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, attributed the outage to private companies in a late-night television address to the country, which he delivered to eight million homes.

“What happened today is outrageous because it’s not tolerable that one or several companies impact the everyday life of millions of Chileans, and that’s why it’s the state’s duty to hold them responsible”, Boric said.

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.

In an effort to keep things order, the government of the interior announced that it would be sending armed forces across the nation, which would be spread along the southern Pacific coast, at a distance of 4,300 kilometers (more than 2,600 miles).

Early on Wednesday, Chile’s power operator said most of the country’s electrical demand was back online, with “90 percent of consumption” restored.

Ernesto Huber, executive director of Chile’s National Electricity Coordinator, said earlier that the body had “activated several power stations, mainly hydroelectric stations” to try and meet demand.

Streetlights in Santiago went dark and sirens blared on Tuesday, as the capital’s metro – which transports millions of passengers a day – was closed and passengers evacuated, the Reuters news agency reported.

Chile’s transport minister, Juan Carlos Munoz, urged people to stay home, as he cautioned that only about 27 percent of Santiago’s traffic lights were working.

“There’s nothing. There’s no cash. No money. Nothing”, Santiago resident Jose Luis Orlandini told Reuters.

Terminals are using emergency power, according to authorities at Santiago’s Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport, and flights are running normally.

The global metal markets were shocked when a large copper mine shut down in northern Chile, the country’s top producer, as a result of the outage.