A state of emergency has been declared in Chile after a power outage left millions without electricity and plunged the capital Santiago into darkness. The widespread blackout, affecting eight million homes, was caused by a high-voltage transmission line failure in the north. Authorities have ruled out sabotage, blaming private firms for the outage.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said the outage impacted daily life and that it’s the state’s duty to hold companies responsible. A curfew has been established from 10pm to 6am across 14 of the country’s 16 regions, and armed forces are being deployed to maintain order.
Most of Chile’s electrical demand was back online on Wednesday morning, with 90% of consumption restored. However, residents have reported difficulties, including working traffic lights that only function 27% of the time. Flights at Santiago’s airport continued as normal, but large copper mines were forced to shut down due to the outage, affecting global metal markets.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/26/chile-declares-state-of-emergency-as-blackout-plunges-country-into-darkness