The Dominican Republic has experienced a nationwide power outage that authorities said was related to a failure in the electricity transmission system.
At 1:23 p.m. local time (17:23 GMT), a problem in a substation caused the interruption of electrical service nationwide, reported the state-owned Dominican Electric Transmission Company, citing the country’s Energy Minister, Joel Santos Echeverría.
About 33% of national power demand had been restored as of Tuesday evening and officials said they were working to restore full service as quickly as possible.
The Caribbean nation, with around 11 million inhabitants, had been experiencing minor blackouts in recent weeks, the AFP news agency reports.
State power company officials said generating units at two major power plants had shut down, causing “a cascade of failures” in other parts of the grid.
Local media reported that the metro and cable car in the capital, Santo Domingo, had stopped working and people had to be evacuated during Tuesday’s national blackout.
There have also been reports of chaotic scenes on the country’s roads. Social media users reported power outages in several parts of the country, but electricity and internet were operational in some places, according to reports.
Last month, Hurricane Melissa was blamed for four deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic after the category five storm hit the region.
The Caribbean nation is an important tourist destination. Once ruled by Spain, the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, a former French colony.
