(Bloomberg) -- Chile is emerging from a power outage that left 8 million homes without electricity and shut off service to major copper mines in its worst such incident in at least 15 years.
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Power was brought back to millions of households overnight, and 94% of clients now have supply, Undersecretary of the Interior Luis Cordero said early Wednesday. Most of those still affected are in the north of the country, where the theft of cables delayed the restoration of electricity to some clients in the Atacama region.
Chile’s government shifted its attention to determining liabilities for the failure as life in one of Latin America’s richest economies got back to normal. Santiago’s subway system is working as normal again after the power cut shut down services and led to gridlock across the city on Tuesday. The administration lifted both the curfew and the state of emergency that it had decreed to avoid looting and disorder.
“The government has the responsibility — not just the right — to make sure that laws are obeyed, to establish responsibilities and to enforce sanctions,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha said in televised remarks early Wednesday, adding that the government will support citizens who file formal complaints. “All the government institutions that have a role to play here will do so with much zeal, strength and speed.”
The power cut was triggered by a fault in transmission lines owned by ISA Interchile SA, a unit of Colombia’s Interconexion Electrica SA, which is 51% owned by Ecopetrol SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The situation was then exacerbated by other failures, including in an automated system that coordinates the grid and in a separate system designed to restore electricity, Energy Minister Diego Pardow said.
The government deployed the military overnight to maintain security, and 207 people were detained, Toha said. Three people who are electricity-dependent died during the power failure, and the government will determine whether or not their deaths can be directly attributed to the blackout, she said.
“It is intolerable that due to the irresponsibility of one or several companies the daily lives of millions of Chileans are affected,” President Gabriel Boric said in televised remarks Tuesday night. “This situation should have been regularized much earlier. We are going to make sure that those responsible for this situation have to respond.”