Mexico: failure leaves 2.3 million people without electricity and causes traffic chaos

(AFP) A fault in an interconnection line left 2.3 million people in southeastern Mexico without electricity on Friday, causing chaos in cities such as tourist Cancun, authorities said.

Nearly four hours after the incident, service had been restored to 50% in large sectors of the states of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo, which make up one of the tourist jewels of this country of 130 million inhabitants.

"There were 2,300,000 citizens affected," Hector Lopez, operations director of the state-run Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), told reporters.

The failure took 16 generating units out of service and collapsed vehicular traffic and communications.

"The traffic lights stopped working and a great chaos was unleashed. Only gas stations and businesses that had power plants continued to operate, but other businesses had to close because they had no way to process payments," recounted a contributor to the AFP in Cancun (Quintana Roo).

In that city, which is visited by millions of tourists each year, telephone service was interrupted for more than two hours in some neighborhoods.

The chief of operations of the CFE assured that so far there are no reports of any damage to drinking water supply or hospitals.

Mexico has a robust interconnection system, which however is not exempt from failures.

In June 2022, an accident during maintenance work left 1.3 million people without electricityalso in the Yucatan Peninsula.

The incident, which involved one worker, took six high-voltage lines out of operation and interrupted supply for almost two hours.