Power plant explosion triggers Puerto Rico blackouts
The cause of the blaze remains unclear. Power outages have been reported in San Juan, Carolina, Bayamon, Guaynabo, Loiza and Rio Grande, among other areas.
PRETORIA, June 11 (ANA) – Much of Puerto Rico has been left in darkness after a large blaze and an explosion knocked out a power plant in San Juan, the island’s capital, the BBC reported on Friday.
The British news channel quoted Luma Energy as saying that the fire at the Monacillo power station on Thursday set off an explosion and triggered significant blackouts across the island.
The cause of the blaze remains unclear. Power outages have been reported in San Juan, Carolina, Bayamon, Guaynabo, Loiza and Rio Grande, among other areas, the BBC wrote.
The broadcaster said the Caribbean island has struggled with rolling blackouts ever since Hurricane Maria largely destroyed its electrical grid in 2017.
Some Puerto Ricans were left without electricity for nearly a year after the storm.
The New York Daily News reported that officials said outages had affected more than one million customers so far this month, notwithstanding those affected by the explosion and fire at the substation.
Many in Puerto Rico had hoped for a quick improvement in service, but clients complain it has gotten even worse in Luma’s first few days of operation, the publication added.
In its report, it said government officials have urged patience, noting that Luma inherited thousands of outages and only just took over a system running on rickety infrastructure, much of it patched together after Hurricane Maria.
On Tuesday, Luma issued a statement urging municipal officials and private contractors to stop trying to fix the system independently, saying that such efforts were illegal and dangerous.
“Luma is aware of the outages affecting communities across Puerto Rico and working safely and strategically to restore power across the island,” Luma was quoted as saying.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher