‘Never before’: MILLIONS left without power as Argentina & Uruguay hit by nationwide blackouts

Entire cities descended into darkness as a massive, first-of-its-kind blackout swept across Argentina and Uruguay over the weekend. While power has been restored in Argentina, it has yet to fully return in Uruguay.

Argentina suffered a “nationwide” blackout, which also affected neighboring Uruguay, Alejandra Martinez, a spokesperson for the Buenos Aires-based electricity supplier company Edesur, told local media. “Something like this has never happened before,” she said.

The blackout itself, which affected as many as 44 million people, started at 7:07am local time on Sunday. It took the company around 10 hours to restore services to households after 5:30pm. The company had earlier explained that the massive power outage occurred due to a failure in the electrical interconnection system.

Neighboring Uruguay, with a population of roughly four million, also suffered a power outage at the same time. The utility company, UTE, had managed to restore 98.5 percent of its service "from zero" by 6:30pm. The firm said that works would continue “until dawn.”

READ MORE: ‘Treason!’ Trump slams NYT claim of US cyberattacks on Russia’s power grid as harmful fake news

Paraguay, Brazil and Chine also reported localized losses of power throughout the day.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!