CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s capital Caracas and other regions of the country experienced a widespread power outage early today, the communication and information ministry said, blaming sabotage by the opposition but without giving any evidence.
The outage affected almost the whole of the country, as all 24 states have reported a total or partial loss of electricity supply, said Freddy Nanez, minister of the communication and information ministry, on state television.
“We have been victims, once again of electrical sabotage,” the minister said.
However he gave no evidence of deliberate sabotage in a country which often suffers power outages, albeit not on a national scale like this one. As recently as Tuesday a series of smaller blackouts affected some states, which Nanez also blamed on sabotage.
President Nicolas Maduro, who has presided over a sharp economic deterioration since he took office in 2013, often complains of attacks on the power grid by the opposition, accusations the opposition has always denied.
No one from the opposition could immediately be reached for comment during the power outage on Friday.
The last major outage was in 2019, when Venezuela suffered three national blackouts, some lasting as long as three days, which authorities also attributed to attacks on the network – such as damage to power lines – by saboteurs and opponents of Maduro’s government.
Venezuela’s electoral council proclaimed Maduro, in power since 2013, the winner of a July 28 presidential election, but has not yet published complete voting tallies. The opposition has since published tallies showing a landslide win for its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez.
Several videos circulating on social media on Friday showed cities under a blackout. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the videos.
