Excerpt
Venezuela buckles under massive power, communications outage
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s worst power and communications outage on Friday deepened a sense of isolation and decay, endangering hospital patients, forcing schools and businesses to close and cutting people off from their families, friends and the outside world.
While electricity returned to some parts of Caracas nearly 24 hours after lights, phones and the internet stopped working, several other populous cities remained in the dark as evening approached.
“I’m desperate,” said Maria Isabel Garcia, a 39-year-old office worker who hadn’t been able to buy food for her three young children because she wasn’t able to take money out of the bank on Thursday.
The blackout marked another harsh blow to a country paralyzed by turmoil as the power struggle between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido stretches into its second month and economic hardship grows.
Venezuelans have grown begrudgingly accustomed to power cuts, but nothing like the one that hit during rush hour Thursday evening, sending thousands of people on long nighttime treks in the dark to their homes. It reached virtually every part of the oil-rich country of 31 million, which was once Latin America’ wealthiest but is now beset by shortages and hyperinflation projected by the International Monetary Fund to reach a staggering 10 million percent this year, compelling about one-tenth of its population to flee in recent years.
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