A massive power outage affected millions of Argentines in several provinces and parts of Buenos Aires for at least two hours on Wednesday afternoon, linked to a fire near high-voltage lines, amid a heat wave. , authorities said.
In the capital, the light was restored around 6:00 p.m. local time in the metro and services gradually resumed.
The media had reported the first cuts between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. (local time), with broken traffic lights, neighborhoods in Buenos Aires without electricity and several metro stations plunged into darkness, as noted by AFP journalists.
“The outage is significant, it affects several provinces. In a period of high heat like today in a large part of the country, the electricity sector was requested to the tune of 25,000 megawatts and the cut removed some 9,000 megawatts” , had indicated the under-secretary of Energy Santiago Yanotti on the C5N channel.
The origin of the cut would be a fire which broke out in a field 60 km from Buenos Aires, near high voltage lines, connected to the nearby Atucha 1 nuclear power plant, according to Mr. Yanotti.
“Due to this external problem, Atucha 1 went out of service, in safe shutdown mode,” said Nucleoelectrica, the national nuclear electricity agency. This in turn affected the supply of large areas of the country.
In a note sent overnight from Wednesday to Thursday to the Federal Court of Campana, the Minister of Economy Sergio Massa asked “to investigate, prosecute and, if necessary, arrest those responsible for very serious acts” , while expressing his “certainty” about the premeditation of the fire.
No official figures were initially available on the number of homes affected by the power outage, but central and northwestern provinces, such as Cordoba, Santa Fe, Mendoza, and parts of the province of Buenos Aires, were affected. , a government source told AFP.
The airports of Ezeiza and Aeroparque in Buenos Aires experienced “micro-cuts”, without seeing their activities interrupted, according to this source.
This outage occurred against the backdrop of the ninth heat wave this summer in Argentina, like the 36 degrees on Wednesday in Buenos Aires. The capital is experiencing the hottest summer in its history according to the meteorological service.
03/02/2023 05:57:11 – Buenos Aires (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
