Daily rationing of more than six hours began to be applied in Margarita island in eastern Venezuela since the night of this Monday, November 11th, as a result of the explosion and subsequent fire at the Muscar Gas Compression Plant of Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), in the municipality of Ezequiel Zamora, Monagas State.
lapatilla.com
Although the National Electric Corporation (Corpoelec) in Nueva Esparta has not issued official information on the matter, after 2:30 in the afternoon many towns had been without electricity supply for more than seven hours .
Unofficially, it was known that as a result of a failure of natural gas supply from the mainland, the Juan Bautista Arismendi generation plant stopped operating. This is the main power supply and is complemented by the meager supply that comes from the mainland state of Sucre through a submarine cable.
The prolonged power failure also affected internet connections, cell phone communication and electronic payments which are indispensable because cash is scarce..
The traffic lights stopped working and more than 80% of the economic activities on Margarita Island were affected by the power failure.
Unauthorized Corpoelec spokesmen confirmed that the situation could last for several days and that they could be applying power rationing for up to two shifts per day (12 hour shifts or two six hour blackouts), while the contingency lasts.