A fault in the distribution grid blacked out much of Argentina for at least two hours on Wednesday, cutting off power to millions of people in provinces and sectors of the capital Buenos Aires, largely due to a fire near high-voltage power lines amid heat waves, authorities said.

In the capital, electricity appeared around 18:00 (local time, 23:00 Greek time) in the metro, and traffic was gradually restored.

The media reported the first blackouts from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (local time), when street lights were turned off, entire neighborhoods in Buenos Aires were left without electricity, and subway stations plunged into darkness, AFP found.

“The damage is large, it affects several provinces. During a heat wave, like most of the country today, the power generation sector needs to produce more than 25,000 megawatts, and the shutdown deprives us of about 9,000 megawatts,” Deputy Energy Minister Santiago Giannotti said in an interview with the C5N network.

According to Mr. Gianotti, the cause of the shutdown was a fire in a field 60 km from Buenos Aires, next to high-voltage lines connected to the Atucha-1 nuclear power plant.

“Due to this extraneous issue, Atucha 1 was taken out of service, it went into shutdown mode for safety reasons,” explained Nucleoelectrica, the national nuclear power generation agency. The shutdown of the plant, in turn, interrupted supplies to much of the Latin American country.

In an anonymous lawsuit filed between Wednesday evening and Thursday in federal court in Cabana, Economy Minister Sergio Massa asked to “investigate, prosecute and, if necessary, arrest individuals who have committed very serious acts” that have affected the country’s electricity. expressing “confidence” that the fire was the result of arson.

No official figures have yet been released on how many households were affected by the blackout. A government source told AFP that power was cut in provinces in the central and northwestern parts of the country, mainly in Cordoba, Santa Fe, Mendoza and parts of Buenos Aires province.

According to the same source, Ezeiza and Aeropaque airports in Buenos Aires experienced “mini-breaks” but did not have to suspend any operations.

The outage comes after southern hemisphere Argentina suffered its ninth consecutive heatwave this summer, with temperatures reaching 36°C on Wednesday in Buenos Aires. The capital of Argentina is experiencing the hottest summer in its historyaccording to the National Weather Service.

Source: RES-IPE