The president of Uruguay’s government-owned utility UTE said that the massive power failure that began in Argentina and left tens of millions in South America without power would be an opportunity to improve the country’s power systems.
Argentina’s grid “collapsed” around 7 a.m. local time (1100 GMT), leaving the entire country without power and cutting electricity to much of neighboring Uruguay and swaths of Paraguay, as well.
Energy distributors in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, whose populations total nearly 55 million, said power was being quickly restored to major cities and heavily populated coastal regions, including Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
UTE said it had restored power to 75% of the country by 1:30 p.m. local time (1730 GMT). It told its customers in a statement that there existed “no other examples of such events like this in recent years.”
