A fault in the distribution network caused a blackout in much of Argentina for at least two hours on Wednesday, cutting power to millions of people in provinces and sectors of the capital Buenos Aires, mainly due to a fire near high-voltage power lines amid a heat wave, they said. the authorities.

In the capital, the power came on around 18:00 (local time) in the metro and services were gradually being restored.

The media reported on the first holiday from 16:00 to 17:00 (local time)with street lights going out, entire neighborhoods of Buenos Aires without power and subway stations plunged into darkness, as AFP journalists found.

“The damage is great, affecting several provinces. In a period of great heat, as today in much of the country, the electricity generation sector is required to produce over 25,000 megawatts and the outage deprives us of approximately 9,000 megawatts“, said Deputy Minister of Energy Santiago Gianotti in the C5N network.

The reason for the interruption was field fire 60 km from Buenos Aires, near high-voltage lines connected to the Atucha 1 nuclear power plant, according to Mr Gianotti.

“Due to this external problem, Atucha 1 has been taken out of service, it has entered a shutdown state for safety reasons“, explained Nucleoelectrica, the national service for the production of electricity through nuclear plants. The shutdown of the plant in turn interrupted the supply to much of the Latin American country.

In an anonymous lawsuit filed Wednesday night into Thursday in a federal court in Cabana, Economy Minister Sergio Massa asked “to investigate, to prosecute and, if necessary, to arrest the perpetrators of the very serious acts” that affected the electricity in the country, expressing the “certainty” that the fire was due to arson.

No official figures have been released so far on how many households were affected by the power outage. A government source told AFP that power was cut in provinces in the central and northwestern parts of the country, mainly in Córdoba, Santa Fe, Mendoza and parts of Buenos Aires province.

The airports Ezeiza and Aeropaque of Buenos Aires faced “mini vacation”without having to suspend any of the activities in them, according to the same source.

The blackout was recorded while Argentina hit by the ninth heat wave in a row this southern hemisphere summer: the temperature reached 36° Celsius yesterday in Buenos Aires. The capital of Argentina is experiencing the hottest summer in its history, according to the national meteorological service.