The blackout that left much of Venezuela without electricity and internet and that the government called sabotage

It was at 5am on Friday morning, when Anais was getting up, that she noticed that her fan had stopped working. She soon realised that the problem was not only in her house but that the whole area was in darkness.

“I looked out the window and couldn’t see anything. I thought it might be a blackout“This Venezuelan woman, who lost her internet connection for much of the day but managed to stay informed through her cell phone’s mobile data, told BBC Mundo.

He The blackout occurred at 4 a.m.in at least 20 of the country’s 23 states, in addition to Caracas, although official information is not precise about its scope.

On Friday morning, the Minister of Communication and Information, Freddy Ñáñez, reported that the blackout was spreading throughout the country and attributed the event to a “sabotage” from the opposition, but without providing evidence.

“We have been victims, once again, of a electrical sabotage“, said the minister.

Opposition leader Juan Pablo Guanipa responded on social media X that “the narrative (of sabotage) is not believed even by the most radical Chavistas, but they end up keeping quiet because they are also persecuted by the regime.”

Later the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabellowho was recently appointed to his post, said that the service would begin to return to normal in the capital and added that it would “gradually reach the entire national territory.”

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López announced on Friday that the government has activated the “Plan Centella,” which he explained consists of making transportation available so that citizens can get around.

«We have put into practice the Centella Plan“That is a plan we have to cover any situation at a national level. In this case of transportation and patrol, we have deployed all motorized units, trucks, tactical and non-tactical vehicles, civilians, to support the people in their movement,” Padrino López explained in a telephone conversation with the state channel VTV.

He added that the Armed Forces would be “acting in coordination with all public security bodies.”

According to BBC Mundo, power has begun to return to some parts of the country, such as in the eastern metropolitan area of ​​Caracas, while in others, such as in Maracaibo, in the state of Zulia, dozens of families remained without electricity at the time of writing.

The blackout comes amid a tough political crisis after the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the July 28 elections, without showing the electoral records or disaggregated data.

Neither Cabello nor Ñáñez have specified in what part of the electrical system the fault occurred. It is not yet known whether it was in the towers, the transmission lines or in the power generation plants.

Neither the state company National Electric Corporation has given details of the problems that caused the failure.

In the case of previous blackouts, the government pointed to sabotage of transmission lines and the collapse of towers as the causes, explanations that were questioned by several specialists, who identified the main problem as the lack of maintenance and the disinvestment in the electrical system.

The country is often plagued by power outages, although they do not occur on a national scale like this Friday.

In the previous days, a series of minor blackouts affected some states and power outages were felt in several parts of Caracas.

“We felt a power outage in my office on Thursday afternoon, which turned off the equipment and lights in the place,” says Anais.

Science Minister Gabriela Jiménez said in a statement that hospitals, emergency units, intensive care units, surgical areas, dialysis units and blood banks are operational.

The blackout affected some key operations of the state oil company PDVSA, including at its largest terminal, where the Loading and unloading of ships was interrupted for several hours, Reuters reported.

PDVSA’s headquarters in Caracas lost power, but the company’s largest refining complex, Paraguana, was not affected as its own power plant was operational, the sources said.

He The last major blackout was in 2019when Venezuela suffered three national power outages, some of which lasted up to three days, authorities also attributed it to attacks on the network by opponents of Nicolás Maduro.