Venezuela has run out of power for three days and Maduro has imposed mandatory rest

The Minister of Communication of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, announced Sunday to have ordered the suspension of the courses and the working day Monday because of the power outage that the country is experiencing.

The power blackout, which affects vast areas of Caracas and 22 of the 23 federal states, has also caused fuel shortages and significant property damage, including food and drug conservation.

In response, there have been dozens of small demonstrations across the country, ranging from cacerolazos to burning tires and trash bags, to obstruction of highways and streets. Some of them were repressed by the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), according to the newspaper El Nacional Caracas.

Like yesterday, service was restored this morning in several neighborhoods. Caracas and provinces, but in most of them it fell again before noon, according to the media and many citizens and social network leaders.

"The national electricity system has been the subject of multiple computer attacks that have caused its downfall and prevented attempts to come together.There will be no national connection.However, we are making great efforts to restore the Supply in a stable and definitive manner in the next few hours "President Nicolás Maduro announced on his Twitter account.

According to the Coalition of Organizations for the Right to Health, the power outage, considered the most important in the history of Venezuela, has caused the death of at least 18 patients, many of whom were with renal failure and could not perform dialysis for lack of electricity. and life (Codevida).

The Acting President appointed by the National Assembly (NA, Parliament), Juan Guaidó, said that at least 17 patients died in various hospitals, while several NGOs estimated at 28 the number of fatal victims both inside and outside health centers , according to El Nacional.

The executive secretary of the Federation of Electrical Industry Workers of Venezuela, Ali Briceño, said the power outage, which had started at 5 pm on Thursday, was due to the fall of three transmission lines high voltage of the Guri hydroelectric plant. the largest in the country and the second in Latin America – at the substation Malena, in the state of Bolívar, Amazon.

"The weeds had developed so that there was a fire of vegetation that had caused the output of the three lines of 765 kilowatts, two by heating and the other by overloading"explained Briceño.

He added that "the protections were acting automatically and that the Guri machines were off," pointing out that "when that happens, you have to calibrate the frequency", but the state's electricity company Corpoelec Lack of trained technicians to do it.

The chef, who felt that the blackout could be overcome "Maybe today at night or tomorrow morning, as long as there are no more problems"He explained that out of the 50,000 employees of Corpoelec, 24,000 left Venezuela" seeking better living conditions for themselves and their families ", including" 14,700 engineers or technicians ".

Briceño said that although Guri produces about 80% of the electricity consumed throughout Venezuela, "neither the transformers nor anything have been preserved", so that the electrical system is "adrift and without any guarantee. "

At the same time, the Social Democrat Elias Matta, chairman of the AN Commission on Energy and Oil, recalled that "in 2009, the government of President Hugo Chávez had decreed the Electric emergency and approved the allocation of "nearly 75,000 million dollars" for point the system, reason for which he felt that there "exists a political responsibility" of chavismo in the breakdown.