In the midst of a second nationwide power outage in Venezuela, the vast majority of the country is engulfed in a massive internet outage. The first electrical blackout, which swept across the nation on Thursday, left Venezuela with only two percent connectivity amid the ongoing presidential crisis. Most of the country has been offline since Thursday with limited or no connectivity being reported across large swaths of the South American nation. The NetBlocks Group, a private internet watchdog organization based in the UK, reported on Saturday that 96 percent of the country was offline:
Update: New data shows profound and sustained impact on #Venezuela's telecommunications infrastructure after second nationwide power outage with 96% of country remaining offline #SinLuz #ApagonNacional #9Mar ??t.co
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) March 9, 2019
“Venezuela experiences frequent power cuts, and Venezuela started power rationing and reduced its electricity consumption to about 14,000 megawatts at peak hours because of the economic crisis in 2018,” NetBlocks said. “However the nationwide outages are unprecedented in magnitude, extent and duration. NetBlocks historic data suggest that incidents of this scale are vanishingly rare.”
Much of Venezuela is still in the dark — now four days running — after the worst blackout on modern record in Latin America enveloped the country last Thursday evening. And as of Saturday, Reuters reported at least 17 deaths at hospitals across the country attributable to the power outage, given many hospitals are now for days completely reliant on back-up generators to keep life saving ventilators and other medical devices going. Other reports have claimed multiple dozens of deaths across the country, especially in hospital neonatal units.
Embattled socialist president Nicolas Maduro has continued to blame the crisis on an act of "sabotage" by the United States at the Guri hydroelectric dam, for which he's mobilized troops to protect the national electricity system for the duration of the power outage. However, many analysts claim the electrical grid mass failure is the result of generally failing infrastructure after years of underinvestment and neglect.
Following claims made through state TV social media of an "electricity war" being waged by the US and the Venezuelan foreign-backed opposition, Maduro stated on Twitter Sunday: “The national electrical system has been subject to multiple cyberattacks,” and he added, “However, we are making huge efforts to restore stable and definitive supply in the coming hours.”
zerohedge.com
Some Venezuelans have taken to looting supermarkets in Caracas during the fourth day of blackouts, which have paralysed the country.
Pictures reveal that some supermarkets in the capital have been left ransacked by desperate residents as they struggle to find food.
Security forces detained a number of people who were caught looting on Sunday, with some pictures showing looters being piled onto waiting trucks.
Armed men were seen forcefully escorting young men and women to the trucks.
dailymail.co.uk
The blackout, which began Thursday afternoon, increased frustration among Venezuelans already suffering widespread food and medicine shortages, as the once-prosperous OPEC nation's economy suffers a hyperinflationary collapse. Food rotted in refrigerators, people walked for miles to work with the Caracas subway down, and relatives abroad anxiously waited for updates from family members with telephone and internet signals intermittent.
"What can you do without electricity?" said Leonel Gutierrez, a 47-year-old systems technician, as he carried his six-month-old daughter on his way to buy groceries. "The food we have has gone bad."
