If you have ever wondered what would happen if 99% of a country will run out of electricity, Chile has lived it in their flesh

99% of the population of Chile remained in the dark. A failure in an electric transmission line caused the biggest blackout from the country in 14 years from 3:15 p.m. until after 23:00 hours.

Short. Chile has seen the electricity supply interrupted in 14 of the 16 regions, from the Arica northern to the southern of the lakes in an extension of more than 3,000 kilometers that the nation travels, According to the National Disaster Response Service (Senapred). For eight hours the Chilean country was without light or connection and until midnight did not return, so the government authorities They had to decree The state of emergency and a curfew (between 22.00 and 6.00 in the morning on Wednesday) and convene the disaster risk management committee (Cogrid).

The chaos. The blackout that surprised at noon generated a huge circulatory chaos, prevented banking, financial, mining and commercial activity. In addition, it put hospitals and other essential services at risk, and has already been reported at the time of writing this note The death of three electrodependent people. On the other hand, the images of the Metropolitan Region Metro Without light and People returning on footthey are already viral in different social networks. To this media have confirmed people from the Bío Bío region, Valparaíso and the city of Santiago de Chile who had to send SMS messages to communicate, the information came through the radio and the little internet (it was intermittent) reached them to use to use The X app (old Twitter), since it was the only one that worked.

Regarding the coercive measures of the government, it mobilized thousands of security agents of the Military Police of Carabineros and the Investigation Police (PDI), According to the Undersecretariat of Defense. For the moment There is no record of acts vandalism or serious accidents, but the national air traffic with delays and agglomerations has been affected.

The blackout. The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, He went to the country at 10:00 p.m. from the Palacio de la Moneda by contingency before the power of electricity supply. In this speech to the population, Boric explained that the blackout was the product of A fault of the Isa Interchile company and there was a massive cut in almost the whole country. From the National Electric Coordination (CEN) they reported that the interruption of the electricity supply was produced by a disconnection of the 500 kV transmission system in the North Chico.

Through this situation, the service recovery plan was activated to reestablish electricity, but it did not begin to reach up to 10 p.m. and after four attempts, they had not succeeded. The president of the Board of Directors of the CEN, Juan Carlos Olmedo, confirmed that disconnection It was due to “an unwanted operation in the protection and control systems of the line (which the Isa Interchile company manages).” And he explained: “The electronic systems did not operate the way it should have operated.”

The vulnerability of the system. Isa Interchile, a subsidiary of the Colombian company Isa, plays an important role in electric transmission in Chile, being responsible of infrastructure such as the New Maitencillo Line – New Pan of Sugar. The electrical system in Chile is composed of different private companies that generate and distribute, but a failure in these infrastructure can affect the electricity supply nationwide.

The recent blackout has shown The vulnerability of the electrical system Chilean, no It is obsolete. However, when concentrating into a few hands and an interruption in a key infrastructure can generate chaos nationwide, highlighting the need to reinforce Resilience and diversification in the country’s electrical system.

Affected a pillar of the economy. The world’s largest copper mine, hidden from BHP, ran out of electricity, confirmed to Reuters. Also the state copper mining company Codelco confirmed in a statement to media That all their mines were affected, leaving the largest, the Lieutenant and Chuquicamata, without electricity, while the smallest mines could partially operate using support generators. Similarly, the Antofagasta Minera was able to continue working.

A day after the blackout. Recently, Interior Minister Carolina Tohá, has announced at a press conference that the government has raised the state of exception by catastrophe, together with the curfew. However, the minister explained that the uprising of the measure “does not affect the regions of the country in which we have a state of emergency exception, particularly the Araucanía region and much of the biobío, which are with an emergency state by security reasons, this does not affect the deployment of military personnels that we have on the border (north). ”

Image | Pablo carved

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