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A massive power outage struck the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, leaving the entire nation of over 11 million people without electricity for several hours. The blackout began after failures at two key power plants, which authorities said triggered a cascading collapse across the national grid. The incident snarled traffic in major cities like Santo Domingo and forced many businesses to close their doors.
The country's energy and mines minister, Antonio Almonte, confirmed that the outage stemmed from a system failure rather than a lack of generation capacity. The island-wide blackout created significant challenges, though critical infrastructure like the main international airport and the Santo Domingo metro system managed to continue operating on backup generators. However, the sudden loss of power caused chaos on the roads as traffic lights went dark during peak hours, stranding commuters and creating widespread gridlock.
Technicians from the state-owned Dominican Corporation of State Electric Companies worked throughout the day to bring the system back online. Officials stated that power would be restored gradually, with some areas seeing electricity return within a few hours. By late evening, reports indicated that service had been restored to a significant portion of the capital. Crews scrambled to restore power across the nation in a complex process that involved sequentially restarting different parts of the grid.
While widespread blackouts are not uncommon in the Dominican Republic, a complete shutdown of the entire national system is rare. The country has a history of electrical service issues, but the government has recently made efforts to modernize the grid and increase generation capacity to improve reliability. The incident highlights the fragility of the nation's infrastructure as it works to meet growing energy demands.
