“….Addressing the nation on TV, President Gabriel Boric said eight million homes had been affected but power had been restored to about half of them….What happened today is outrageous,” he said. “It’s not tolerable that one or several companies affect the everyday life of millions of Chileans, and that’s why it’s the state’s duty to hold them responsible.”
The national service for disaster prevention and response said earlier that the outage stretched from the regions of Arica and Parinacota in the north to Los Lagos in the south.
Reuters news agency reported that the world’s largest copper mine, Escondida, was without power, citing a source close to the matter.
Latam Airlines said some of its flights might also be disrupted while power supplies were down, and urged passengers to check their journey status.
In a post on X, the Santiago Metro operator said its service had been temporarily suspended due to the ongoing power outage, with stations being evacuated and closed.
Footage from the city showed passengers evacuating stations by walking up switched-off escalators, while traffic signals were also shown not working.
There were also long queues for buses which were still running on the city’s roads.
Maria Angelica Roman, 45, told AFP news agency: “They let us leave work because of the power cut but now I don’t know how we will get home because all the buses are full.”
Chile’s Interior Minister, Carolina Toha, also posted on X to say that a meeting would be called to discuss ongoing measures to restore services.
