Ecuador was hit by a nationwide blackout on Wednesday, plunging approximately 18 million people into darkness for several hours, a senior government minister reported.
In the capital, Quito, the blackout halted the subway system and rendered traffic lights non-operational around mid-afternoon local time.
Public Works Minister Roberto Luque, speaking shortly after power was restored, attributed the outage to insufficient investment in electrical infrastructure. Writing on X, he stated, “This is further evidence of the energy crisis we’re facing. For years, we’ve neglected to invest in these systems, and now we’re facing the consequences.”
Earlier this year, in April, a drought led the government to implement planned blackouts, causing major cities to experience prolonged power outages.
Quito Mayor Pabel Muñoz described Wednesday’s blackout as “major,” noting that it even disrupted the metro, which operates on a separate system. The Quito metro confirmed that services were interrupted due to a “general failure of the national interconnected electrical energy system.”
The outage left many residents frustrated. Guayaquil hairdresser Diana Rosales, who was mid-haircut when the blackout occurred, expressed her dissatisfaction to newspaper Expresso: “It’s not fair that we continue to receive terrible service when we pay so much for our bills.”
Local media reported that the blackout also disrupted access to drinking water in some areas, leaving residents without prior warning. “Now I have to work miracles with the bottle I have at home,” Guayas resident Andrew Medina told Expresso.
The ministry of education announced that night classes were suspended nationwide and moved online.
Several hours after the blackout began, Minister Luque announced that 95% of the country’s electricity had been restored. He earlier cited the failure of a transmission line as the cause of the outage. Most of Ecuador’s energy supply comes from neighboring Colombia.
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