CARACAS/MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – The attack on Venezuela’s largest hydro-electric power plant Guri, which has caused the second major power outage to hit the county in the course of one month, has been perpetrated with the use of a long-range sniper rifle, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said.
“The attack was, of course, carried out with a sniper rifle. Let Venezuelans have no doubt that there are devil’s puppets behind this attack”, Maduro said in an interview with a state-run TV broadcaster on Wednesday.
The president called on the public to remain calm amid the power outage, adding that “very serious” damage had been inflicted to the power plant.
At the same time, NetBlocks, the NGO monitoring the governance of internet across the world, said that nearly 70 percent of Venezuela remained without internet access amid the blackout.
“It has been 55 hours since the onset of nationwide power outages in #Venezuela; 69% of the country remains offline after a new drop-in connectivity”, NetBlocks wrote on Twitter.
Venezuela’s Communication Minister Jorge Rodriguez told Telesur TV on Wednesday that the country’s national energy supplier was working to restore electricity amid the blackout.
Rodriguez also wrote on Twitter on the same day, that Thursday would be declared a public holiday, retaining schools and companies across the country closed for the third consecutive day.
The power outage hit Venezuela at around 01:30 p. m. (17:30 GMT) on Monday. Caracas said it had been caused by an attack on the Guri hydro-electric power plant which covered around 80 percent of the country’s demand for electricity. Several hours later, Rodriguez said the electricity supply had been restored just to announce later that the power grid had been compromised again.
Over the past months, Venezuela has repeatedly faced power outages. The largest blackout swept the country on March 7, prompted by what the authorities called the US sabotage against the Guri dam.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
