- A power outage in South America has left all of Argentina and Uruguay, along with parts of Brazil and Paraguay, without any electricity.
- The outage began at 7:07 a.m. local time, according to tweets from Argentina’s main energy provider, and has affected over 48 million people.
- This power failure hits on an election day for parts of Argentina.
- People are sharing photos and videos of their eerily dark cities on social media with the hashtag #SinLuz.
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Millions of people across South America woke up on Sunday, June 16, to a completely dark world. The BBC reported that the entire countries of Uruguay and Argentina, a combined population of 48 million people, were left totally without power. The outage affected parts of Brazil and Paraguay, as well.
Tweets from Edesur Argentina, one of the country’s largest energy providers, explained that “a massive failure in the electrical interconnection system” caused the power outage.
As of now, the country is slowly beginning to restore power, a process that will take “several hours.” Edesur shared a message from Argentina’s Energy Secretary, that stated that a “failure in the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI)” is at fault.
50,000 people have had power restored in Argentina, while coastal cities in Uruguay have had power restored, according to a tweet from Uruguay’s energy provider – which still leaves millions of people without power.
People have taken to social media and posted videos and photos of their darkened cities with the hashtag #SinLuz.
VIDEO: 🇺🇾 Residents of Uruguay's capital #Montevideo wake up to no electricity after a massive electricity cut left Argentina, Uruguay and some parts of neighbouring countries in the dark, according to Uruguayan and Argentine electricity companies #apagon #SinLuz pic.twitter.com/tvyxuMjTts
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 16, 2019
#SinLuz #shutdown @elonmusk we need your help in Argentina. pic.twitter.com/seFGvV0FoH
— Lucas (@lucas_m_rod) June 16, 2019
Se corto la luz de emergencia en Jumbo.#SinLuz #apocalipsis pic.twitter.com/Jr7Vi6Ih3K
— Azulht25💜🏳️🌈 (@azul1625) June 16, 2019