Puerto Rico has been hit with an island-wide power outage, after its electricity plants unexpectedly failed.
The outage began at 12:38pm local time, and affected power plants operated by multiple providers. More than 1.4 million Puerto Rican energy customers have been impacted.
“We continue to work with our generation partners to restore service across the island,” electricity company LUMA Energy said on X at 5:30pm local time. “We have begun the process of restoring the electrical system following the unexpected shutdown of all generating plants.”
“Based on current projections, it is estimated that restoring service to 90% of customers could take between 48 and 72 hours.”
The power outage stemmed from a faulty electricity transmission line in southern Puerto Rico, according to the island’s Electric Power Authority.
At least 78,000 Puerto Ricans are also without water due to the power failure.
The island’s hospitals and San Juan Airport are currently operating on generators. Flights will not be interrupted, the airport said, but “some services are functioning in a limited manner”.
Puerto Rico previously saw a major power outage in December, when a damaged underground power line caused a two-day blackout on New Year’s Eve. Its power grid has become increasingly unreliable since Hurricane Maria heavily damaged electricity services in 2017.
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