Excerpt
In Venezuela, massive blackout continues as Maduro blames U.S. for outages
CARACAS, Venezuela — One of the severest power outages in Venezuelan history ravaged the country for a second day Friday, with hospital patients languishing in the dark, most supermarkets closed and phone service largely knocked out in the oil-rich but economically collapsing country.
Venezuela, which has been roiled by a political struggle between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó, has been hit by outages before. But the blackout that began Thursday evening is the longest and most widespread in recent memory, a sign of the rapid deterioration of the economy, which is expected to contract sharply in the next few weeks as U.S. sanctions on the oil industry begin to bite. Some analysts even worry that the country — once among the richest in South America — could face famine.
Power began to flicker on in Caracas and other parts of the country Friday afternoon. But around the country, most stores and restaurants were closed, and few cars ventured into the streets. The outage also stalled refineries and oil plants, the source of nearly all of Venezuela’s export revenue. NetBlocks, a nongovernmental organization that tracks Internet disruptions around the globe, said the Internet outage was massive in Venezuela; at one point, only 2 percent of the country had connectivity.
At hospitals Friday, doctors and nurses struggled to help patients in facilities with no light or electricity. At the private Avila clinic in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Caracas, a generator kept a few areas running, such as the emergency room.
But Daniela Ruiz, who was 39 weeks pregnant, sat uncertainly on a couch in the reception area. Doctors had planned to induce labor because of a lack of fluid in her womb, the 32-year-old communications consultant said.
“Because of the lack of electricity, nothing is working,” she said. “We can’t communicate with the doctor; the phones don’t work.”
Her husband, Daniel Cisneros, 33, said he had never seen anything like the outage. Asked who was responsible, he said: “For the people here, everything that happens in the country is Maduro’s fault.”
All the views expressed in, and at the source of, this article may not necessarily reflect those of T.E.A. Watchers.
Click article heading to go to article source.