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Chile has been hit by its worst blackout in 15 years after a transmission line failure knocked out power for hours for more than 90 per cent of its population as well as the country’s crucial copper mines.
The outage, which began on Tuesday afternoon, disrupted power supplies in 14 of the 16 regions across Chile’s 4,300km territory, according to the country’s national disaster response service.
In a late-night national broadcast, Chile’s leftwing president Gabriel Boric blamed the outages on a fault in infrastructure installed by energy transmission company ISA Interchile and pledged to investigate the companies involved.
The government also declared a state of emergency across most of the country, imposing a curfew from 10pm to 6am.
“What happened today was an outrage,” said Boric. “It’s not tolerable that the everyday life of millions of Chileans be impacted by the actions of one or several companies, and that’s why it’s the state’s duty to hold them responsible.”
State-owned copper miner Codelco said in a statement all of its mines had been affected, leaving the largest sites, El Teniente and Chuquicamata, without electricity, while smaller mines were able to operate partially using back-up generators.
Codelco officials later said the mines had begun resuming operations in the early hours of the morning.
BHP’s Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, was also affected, Reuters reported.
In Santiago, the capital of 8.4mn people, subway closures and traffic light failures caused gridlock in the evening, while nightfall plunged homes into darkness. Mobile phone and water services were also affected.
Around midnight, the government said 42 per cent of households remained without power.
Earlier, interior minister Carolina Tohá had warned that it could take longer to restore power to mining operations. Chile produces about a quarter of the world’s copper.
Copper futures traded on the Comex in New York rose as much as 4.5 per cent on Wednesday, following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a probe into copper dumping in the country ahead of possible tariffs on the metal.
ISA Interchile has confirmed a transmission fault, saying in a statement it was working closely with authorities to re-establish electricity supply and “determine the causes” of the transmission failure. Chilean authorities have ruled out an attack on the grid.
Juan Carlos Olmedo, board president of the National Electricity Co-ordinator, which runs Chile’s electricity grid, said on Tuesday night that a fault had occurred soon after 3pm in a major high-voltage transmission line that carries power from the northern Atacama Desert to the country’s central valley.
“This produced a sort of chain reaction of plant shut downs and demand [overloads], causing a total blackout in the electric system,” said Olmedo.
