Ecuador suffered a nationwide power outage Wednesday, leaving about 18 million people in the dark for hours, a senior government minister said.
The capital Quito's subway system stopped working around mid-afternoon local time on Wednesday, and traffic lights also stopped working.
Shortly after power was restored, Public Works Minister Roberto Luque blamed the outage on a lack of investment in the electricity system.
He called X “more evidence of the energy crisis we are dealing with.”
“We have been disinvesting in these systems for years and we are experiencing the consequences today,” he added.
Last April, the drought prompted the government to announce plans for a series of blackouts that would leave major cities without power for hours.
Quito Mayor Pavel Muñoz described Wednesday's incident as “grave” and that “even the subway, which has its own separate system, lost power.”
Quito's metro said services were suspended “due to a general failure of the nationally interconnected electrical energy system.”
The outage left residents frustrated, said Diana Rosales, a hairdresser in Guayaquil who was cutting someone's hair when the power went out. “It is unfair that we pay a lot of money and continue to provide poor service,” he told newspaper Expresso.
Local media reported that drinking water supplies were cut off in some areas and that some residents were frustrated by the lack of warning about the disruption.
“Now we have to work miracles with the bottles we have at home,” Guayas resident Andrew Medina told Expresso.
The Ministry of Education announced that night classes at educational institutions across the country were also suspended and conducted online.
Hours later, Mr. Luque announced that 95% of the country's electricity had been restored.
He previously attributed the blackout to a breakdown in the transmission line.
Most of the country's energy comes from neighboring Colombia.
