Venezuela has 31 million people and has had almost no electricity for six days. There are estimates on Twitter (#sinluz) suggesting that about half is back up as I write, but the stories of chaos, death and disaster are surely just starting to come out as communication lines open. The water coming out of taps is black, possibly contaminated with oil (are those shots real?), the Pepsi plant was stripped bare, see the video. People are desperate: Shop owners are apparently shooting looters. One baker took his own life after his shop was overrun and everything was stolen. It may not be over yet either — the grid recovered almost as far a few days ago, then collapsed again. Indeed, today explosions have been reported at an electrical substation at La Tiama, as well as other substations.
Netblocks tracks connectivity in Venezuala, which seems to be a reasonable proxy for power, and clearly electricity is being rebuilt partially, then collapsing again.
Update: 119 hours after the onset of nationwide power outages #Venezuela‘s connectivity is up to 63%, marking significant progress in the restoration of utilities #SinLuz #12Mar ⬇️https://t.co/8pljYDEYae pic.twitter.com/zcBeVkqnKG
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) March 12, 2019
On the BBC […]
via JoNova
March 13, 2019 at 11:27AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 