Caracas, Jul 23 (EFE).- The electric power supply in Venezuela, controlled by the state-run Corpoelec firm, as of Tuesday morning had been working for close to 20 hours with intermittent outages, while some areas remained completely in the dark during that time due to the general blackout that occurred Monday afternoon.
At around 9:00 am Tuesday, another power cut left almost all Caracas without electricity for 10 minutes. Other slight outages have occurred in more than 10 of the 24 Venezuelan states over the past few hours.
The Nicolas Maduro government announced on Twitter the partial restoration of electricity in nine regions and said he is working to get the country back to normal.
These reports have been refuted by hundreds of social-media users reporting the continued electrical blackouts in such areas as Falcon in the west and the oil-rich state of Zulia on the Colombian border, which have been in the dark for almost 20 hours.
In the cases of Trujillo and Merida in the west, electricity service was reconnected before dawn Tuesday and disconnected hours later: both are still without power. In other states the recovery has been partial, with lights on in some communities and lights off in others.
The Chavista president announced a day off for workers and students this Tuesday in order to help the reconnection process, and asked people to stay home except in cases of emergency.
The subway system in Caracas, which daily provides transport for hundreds of thousands of passengers, remains immobilized “due to the electric energy failure.”
The blackout, which affected at least 16 of the 24 states, occurred at 4:40 pm Monday and was due, according to Chavistas, to an “electromagnetic attack” on the principal hydroelectric plant in the country.
The country with the largest proven reserves of petroleum has not seen a power outage of this magnitude since last March, though breakdowns in the service occur daily in some regions, above all in the west and in border regions.
Once again, power failures have brought multiple problems like disconnected mobile phones, interruptions in the drinking-water supply, paralyzed sales in some stores and no more Internet.