Ecuador was hit by a nationwide power outage lasting several hours on Wednesday, according to the country's energy minister. The outage came suddenly and created chaos in traffic.
"A fault in a transmission line has caused a wave of disconnections, so there is no electricity on a national level," announced acting energy minister Roberto Luque on X.
In the capital Quito, the metro came to a standstill due to the outage. People were trapped in lifts and the police were called out to traffic intersections as the traffic lights went out.
The massive outage occurred at 3 pm and three hours later, 95 per cent of the country's power supply had been restored, according to Luque.
The South American country has been struggling with severe drought affecting hydroelectric power production. Meanwhile, sudden heavy rainfall over the weekend, resulting in flooding and landslides, forced authorities to shut down three hydroelectric power plants, reports Reuters.
In April, President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency due to the energy crisis and announced plans for controlled power outages.
