A broad power outage that hit Buenos Aires early yesterday temporarily paralyzed some subway stations and took more than 100 traffic lights out of service on major avenues causing severe traffic jams during morning rush hour.
The outage hit several neighbourhoods in the northern end of Buenos Aires at a time when an early morning strike led by transport unions was already contributing to increasing the normal City traffic chaos.
Power distributor Edenor said the blackout was caused by a failure in a high voltage line.
The City neighbourhoods of Palermo, Villa Ortúzar, Villa Urquiza, Núñez, Coghlan, Colegiales and Almagro were among the worst affected, although the local BA province districts of Carapachay, Munro, Vicente López and Ciudadela were also hit by power cuts.
At 10.15am, Deputy Secretary of Traffic and Transport Guillermo Dietrich confirmed all traffic lights “were back to normal.”
“The major power cut took place at 9.25am and lasted for more than two minutes,” Dietrich told news channel Todo Noticias (TN).
The PRO official acknowledged that even though it did not last long, the power outage was a major issue because it led to traffic bottlenecks in prominent city crossings.
The power outage also affected the subway’s D Line that connects the City neighbourhood of Belgrano with downtown Buenos Aires.
Problems continued an hour after the outage with the D line running limited service between the Congreso de Tucumán (Belgrano) and Agüero (Palermo) stations.
DE VIDO VOWS FINES
Planning Minister Julio De Vido ordered the ENRE electricity regulator to investigate the causes of the outage, warning about potential sanctions against power companies.
“If they fail to provide convincing explanations we will file a criminal complaint against them,” De Vido told reporters.
In December 2013 and January 2014 several blackouts took place in Buenos Aires City and its suburbs that led to large fines against distributors Edenor and Edesur.
Temperatures reaching highs of as much as 35 degrees Celsius — but also lack of investment by power companies — led to blackouts in several neighbourhoods, some of which lasted for several weeks.
Last month, De Vido predicted a “much better performance” of the electricity distribution system next summer, avoiding the risk of long-term blackouts.
The minister also left a door open to move forward with reducing electricity subsidies, an issue that has been in the works over the last several months. De Vido emphasized, however, that there was no set date to implement the measure.
Herald staff with DyN, Télam