Venezuela – Power outage knocked out part of the internet connectivity

A power outage and fluctuations in supply across Venezuela 1 March 2020, knocked out approximately 35% of the country’s telecommunications infrastructure. The NetBlocks internet observatory, which tracks disruptions and shutdowns, reported that yesterday (March 1, 2020) a massive power outage across Venezuela that knocked out a large part of the country’s connectivity to the Internet. The […]

March 2, 2020

A power outage and fluctuations in supply across Venezuela 1 March 2020, knocked out approximately 35% of the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.

The NetBlocks internet observatory, which tracks disruptions and shutdowns, reported that yesterday (March 1, 2020) a massive power outage across Venezuela that knocked out a large part of the country’s connectivity to the Internet.

Confirmed: A major power outage has knocked out internet connectivity in large parts of #Venezuela; real-time network data show 35% fall in national connectivity from 5:45 p.m. local time; incident ongoing #1Mar #Apagon #SinLuz 📉🕯
📰https://t.co/zscaM2NYhM pic.twitter.com/Rqm4dsAMCF
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) March 1, 2020

The power outage impacted several states of Venezuela, mobile networks were also partially affected by the incident, but the organization reported that they were rapidly restored after the fluctuations.

This is not that the first time that the country’s power grid is impacted by a massive outage. On March 2019, Venezuela suffered a major blackout and Nicolas Maduro immediately blamed on opposition “sabotage” of a hydroelectric dam.

“They [the US] carried out a cyberattack on [Guri’s] automatic control system. Everything shows that it is a multiformat and violent attack against all of Venezuela”, Rodriguez told the country’s state television.

At the time, the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Rodriguez declared that the blackout has been caused by a cyberattack against the Guri hydroelectric power plant. The plant provides over 70 percent of the nation’s electricity.