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A nationwide electricity outage struck Ecuador on Wednesday, leaving the nation of some 18 million in the dark, including the capital’s subway system, as authorities worked to repair faulty power lines, a senior official said on Wednesday.
“There is a failure in the transmission line that caused a cascade disconnection, so there’s no electricity at a national scale,” Public Works Minister Roberto Luque said in a post on X.
Luque also serves as the country’s acting energy minister.
A Reuters witness said there was confusion on the streets of Quito, the capital, as traffic lights ceased working.
Operations of Quito’s subway system have also ground to a halt.
“Due to a general failure of the national interconnected electrical energy system, the operation of the Quito Metro is interrupted while the systems are restarted and verified,” the metro system said on X.