MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Huge blackout exposes vulnerability of world’s main copper supplier energy grid

Over ten million people and the copper mines were out for over two hours, admitted Energy minister Rodrigo Alvarez

A massive power blackout on Saturday paralyzed crucial copper mines in Chile and darkened vast swaths of the country including the capital Santiago before energy started to be restored, officials said.

The outage acutely exposed the fragility of the energy grid in the world's top copper producer, which was devastated by a powerful earthquake in 2010.

Critics have blamed Chilean President Sebastian Piñera for under-investment in infrastructure and his popularity ratings have dropped since taking office last year. Prior to the power failure, he has already struggling with massive protests by university students demanding deep educational reforms.

Two hours later engineers scrambling to restore power were able to get the lights turned on in at least some districts of Santiago and at the sprawling El Teniente copper mine of state-owned Codelco, officials said.

Energy Minister Rodrigo Alvarez said the cause of the blackout has not been definitively determined but he cited “oscillation problems” in two power lines and a failure in a computer system.

“This affects the fourth and seventh region, or much of the country's most populous area,” he said on state TV. Those regions include about 10 million people in the centre of the country.

Angloamerican said operations at its Los Bronces mine was halted by the blackout and state-run Codelco said its Andina division was also paralyzed. Authorities said the Collahuasi and Chuquicamata mines in the far north of Chile were not affected and that the power outage did not extend to them.

The blackout occurred at 8:30 p.m. local time (23:30 GMT) Saturday and affected a 1,300-kilometer stretch of this narrow, coast-hugging country.

Deputy Interior Secretary Rodrigo Ubilla said that the situation forced thousands in the capital to be evacuated from trains or subway cars. Similarly one supermarket in the capital had been looted, adding that police and authorities were providing security during the blackout.