Much of Venezuela remained without electricity Tuesday as a new power outage spread across the country in what many feared will be a repeat of the chaos during the nation’s largest-ever blackout earlier this month, NBC News reports.
The outage began around midday Monday and appeared to have affected the majority of Venezuela’s 23 states. While the lights flickered back on in many parts after officials declared service would be restored within hours, the grid collapsed again in the late evening, knocking out communications and leaving much of the South American country bracing for the worst.
“Venezuela doesn’t stand a chance anymore, there is no life here,” said Johnny Vargas, a frustrated restaurant worker who wishes he could leave the country. “People can’t work anymore; we can’t do anything.”
As with the previous outage, President Nicolás Maduro’s government blamed U.S.-backed opponents, accusing them of sabotaging the Guri dam, which supplies the bulk of Venezuela’s electricity.
“A macabre, perverse plan constructed in Washington and executed with factions of the extreme Venezuelan right,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez declare...
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