Power was being restored “in stages”, Dominican authorities assured on Tuesday evening after a “power blackout” that left much of the country without electricity in the afternoon. The power outage particularly affected Santo Domingo and the seaside resort of Punta Cana, while on social networks, many citizens reported power outages in various regions of the country.
📍 From the metro, without teleférico, and with apagados semáforos, miles de esperan people during the hours of the Metro de Santo Domingo station buscando cómo llegar a sus hogares.
🚌 Files are available in four and four full sizes at various points in… pic.twitter.com/dbzJ9VDSFN
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In the capital, power outages prevented residents from accessing the metro and traffic lights, but telephone services remained functional. “We walked because we couldn’t find a vehicle,” said Santo Domingo resident Marisol Cornelia, for example. “It’s a bit complicated because when I take the metro, the traffic jam is worse than usual,” said Leidy, another resident of the capital.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Joel Santos, explained at a press conference that this was “a failure that ultimately impacts the system as a whole, creating what is called a blackout. Of course, this is a sad situation.” “Services will recover gradually. Several sectors have started to receive energy. We already have 455 megawatts, which represents around 15% of the estimated need,” he assured.
“Error in the transmission system”
The minister explained that a free bus replacement service had been introduced and promised “an investigation into this situation and event”. In the afternoon, the Electric Transmission Company (ETED) informed that the “outage” was “the result of a transmission system failure.” Several areas of the capital have had electricity and several advertising panels have been turned on again.
In recent weeks, power outages lasting several hours have occurred frequently in various regions of the country. The president of the electricity distribution company’s board, Celso Marranzini, last week explained that the outages were caused by a lack of maintenance, damage, illegal connections and late payments from users. The Dominican Republic, a country of more than 11 million people, welcomed around 8 million tourists in 2022.
