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Massive Power Outage Hits Puerto Rico

Updated 8 p.m. ET with fire extinguished

TheAssociated Press reports that a fire that had cut off electricity to much of Puerto Rico has been extinguished. Local authorities say that most power is expected to be restored by Thursday morning.

The AP added this:

"Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla told reporters the fire began in a switch and initially destroyed a system that provides 30 percent of Puerto Rico's overall power.

" 'This is a very serious event,' he said. 'The system is not designed to withstand a failure of this magnitude.' "

Our original post continues:

A major power outage has been reported on the island of Puerto Rico.

In a statement, the island's power company, Autoridad de Energia Eléctrica, said the outage is affecting customers throughout the island.

The Puerto Rican paper El Nuevo Dia reports that 1.5 million customers are without power owing to the "complete collapse of the system." The paper reports the outage was caused by a fire at a substation.

Puerto Rican firefighters later tweeted that the fire at the Aguirre power plant has been "controlled."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Richard Gonzales is NPR's National Desk Correspondent based in San Francisco. Along with covering the daily news of region, Gonzales' reporting has included medical marijuana, gay marriage, drive-by shootings, Jerry Brown, Willie Brown, the U.S. Ninth Circuit, the California State Supreme Court and any other legal, political, or social development occurring in Northern California relevant to the rest of the country.