Sunday marked the fourth straight day Venezuelans have been without electricity. The Socialist President, Nicolas Maduro, seems to think the United States is somehow responsible for the suffering his people are facing, according to a report from Reuters.
"The national electrical system has been subject to multiple cyberattacks," Maduro wrote on Twitter on Sunday. "However, we are making huge efforts to restore stable and definitive supply in the coming hours."
The blackout began on Thursday and has had a devastating impact on the already hard hit nation. Venezuela was facing food and medication shortages. The lack of electricity intensified things even further, with food spoiling. One a few grocery stores and bakeries were open because they were running off backup generators. Even those folks felt the impact. No electricity meant no internet, which meant no use of debit or credit cards. Store owners were forced to take only American cash.
According to Doctors for Health, 17 people have died as a result of the power outage. Hospitals in the Socialist-run country don’t have backup generators.
The lack of power has also caused an interruption in internet and cell phone service, making it difficult for people to get ahold of family and friends.
“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 Group, a private internet watchdog organization based in the UK, said. “However the nationwide outages are unprecedented in magnitude, extent and duration. NetBlocks historic data suggest that incidents of this scale are vanishingly rare.”
The outage is believed to be a result from transmission system failures. The Venezuelan government doesn’t have the equipment or staffing to repair them.