PUERTO RICO’S ELECTRICITY GRID COLLAPSES

A grid failure left almost the entire island of Puerto Rico without electricity on New Year’s Eve.

On Tuesday, an estimated 58% of the country was without power at 21:00. That number was an increase from the 90% earlier in the day.

Like many developing countries, Puerto Rico has been struggling with chronic power outages due to infrastructure problems for a very long time.

In a statement, LUMA Energy said it will probably take 24 to 48 hours to turn the electricity back on for everyone. Critical facilities like hospitals were the first to get their power back on again.

Puerto Rico’s Governor Pedro Pierluisi took to social media to share his thoughts on the matter. He said that LUMA and Genera “need to speed up bringing back online the generator units… And keep the people informed about the measures they’re taking to bring service back to the whole island”.

News24 reports that in response to a 2022 protest, LUMA said it had “inherited an electrical system that suffered years, in fact, decades of abandonment”.

Image credit: KGET