Power line failure in Cañar Province blamed for nationwide blackout Wednesday afternoon

Ecuador experienced a massive electric blackout Wednesday afternoon that left most of the country’s 17 million people without power. Electric power went out shortly after 3 and was restored for most customers by 6:30.

Energy Minister Roberto Luque held a press conference Wednesday night to explain why most of Ecuador was without electricity for more than three hours earlier in the afternoon.

In a news conference, Energy Minister Roberto Luque claimed the blackout was unrelated to weekend floods that put three hydroelectric generation plants temporarily out of service.

“The information we have from the National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) is that there was a failure in a 230,000-volt transmission line that created a cascade of disconnections, ultimately causing power outages on a national scale,” Luque said. “There is no relationship to the flooding problems we faced Sunday at the hydro facilities, which we are continuing to correct.”

He explained that the outage began on the Milagro-Zhoray transmission line in Cañar Province.

As of 6:30 Wednesday afternoon, Luque said that while service had been restored to most customers, some coastal communities, including parts of Guayaquil, remained in the dark. “We believe we will have full restoration by 10 tonight,” he said, adding that he will receive a full report about the outage from CENACE on Thursday morning. “At this time, we are concentrating on restoring and maintaining full service to all Ecuadorian households,” he said.

The blackout affected hospitals, homes, and shut down light rail transportation systems in Quito and Cuenca. According to the Health Ministry, most of the country’s public hospitals were without power for less than 15 minutes before emergency generators were activated.

As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, Quito’s Metro subway system remained closed while Cuenca’s urban tram resumed operations at 4:30.

Households in Guayaquil were particularly hard hit by the blackout since temperatures were above 33 degrees Celsius (92 Fahrenheit) Wednesday afternoon. Many office workers in the city center left overheated buildings to find relief outside.

Luque acknowledged that the outage could have been avoided with timely infrastructure investments. “This is a painful example of the lack of upgrades to our electric infrastructure,” he said. “For years, there has been very little investment in these systems and today we saw the consequences.”