Transmission Line Failure Caused Electrical Load Loss This Wednesday: Equipment Repair Continues in Guri
After 18 days of the multi-factor attack against the Simón Bolívar del Guri Hydroelectric Plant (Bolívar state), there was a second attack this Monday, March 25, which began at 1:25 pm and affected at least 19 states, with the system being progressively restored from 4 pm to 7 pm throughout Venezuelan territory.
Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez explained that behind the attack on such a vital and strategic state infrastructure there is a reason for multidimensional sabotage against the intimate daily life of the Venezuelan population, also aimed at fomenting chaos and nonproductivity of oil. PDVSA being the largest national company and therefore the most sensitive to the blockade (not only financial), the embargo and illegal confiscations against international law led by the United States, it is assumed that this would be one of the main objectives, after the previous attack at the beginning of the month resulted in losses of millions to the state.
Last dispatches from the main oil terminal of #Venezuela, Jose, took place on Sunday: Datos- Reuters Venezuela (@ReutersVzla) March 26, 2019
Communication Minister Jorge Rodríguez reported that there was “an artful attack against the main transmission lines that come out of the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Power Station in the Guri”.
Then, Rodríguez said, “when we were at the peak of load generation and in the best transmission situation after the midday attack, at exactly 9:50 p.m., a magnitude attack was perpetrated on the autotransformers yard of the Guri hydroelectric plant.
At 9:50 pm on Monday, the criminals perpetrated the attack they and their owners had been announcing, and which Pdte @NicolasMaduro denounced on several occasions: again attacking the Electrical System to assault an entire town pic.twitter.com/kthLIO3WrF- Jorge Rodríguez (@jorgerpsuv) March 26, 2019
Thus occurred the second strike that cut off the national electric circulation. From then on, electronic communications definitively failed until 5:15 am, when momentarily the service was restored for a few minutes in some parts of the country, until it went down half an hour later.
While the authorities evaluated the extent of the damage done to the transformers since it was confirmed that the stations and substations throughout the national circuit were affected, the minister announced on Tuesday at 4 a.m. the suspension of work and educational activities.
According to Wills Rangel, president of the Central Bolivariana de Trabajadores, the fire in the Guri was extinguished at 9 a.m. by PDVSA’s fire-fighting service, which was moved from the Orinoco Oil Belt to the yards of the hydroelectric plant.
There were also reports of joint work with different organizations in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:
“Not only are the Corpoelec teams there, but also the health service delivery teams, the Civil Protection teams, the security patrol has been activated and is deployed throughout the national territory through the Ministry of People’s Power for the Interior and Justice, and the Strategic Operational Command CEOFANB has been activated in the emergency action plan for all stations and substations”.
On Tuesday, March 26, at noon, Rodríguez himself published photos and told of the damage caused via Twitter.
By incinerating the courtyard and transmission lines, the terrorists achieved their mission of causing the generator and transmission machines to collapse resulting in the blackout. The right has no limits in its ambition and homicidal zeal pic.twitter.com/vr4lUw3FDb- Jorge Rodriguez (@jorgerpsuv) March 26, 2019
But here there is a people, a president, a nation, a multiplied dignity. In record time the electric service is being recovered, the light is already coming to La Capital, all night the firefighters fought the fire to suffocate it x complete at 8:45 am today Tuesday pic.twitter.com/rDzZBe0ZQH- Jorge Rodriguez (@jorgerpsuv) March 26, 2019
According to reports collected from Corpoelec, several electric transmission lines interconnected at different points of the national territory were affected, including the infrastructures in:
- 765 kV lines in San Gerónimo, La Arenosa;
- 765 kv line in San Gerónimo, La Horqueta;
- 400 kv Guri bar 1 hit;
- lines 1 and 2 of 400 kv in Palital, Furrial.
At 11 a.m. the electrical system began to be progressively restored throughout the national territory. However, some regions still have ups and downs with the service and it is expected that there will be intermittencies in the next few hours.
Thus, terrorist attacks on the electricity system begin to produce a pattern of sabotage related to the Venezuelan oil industry, which aggravates short- and medium-term effects on the local economy. The economic offensives of this form not only come by decree, but with the treacherous action of actors of irregular war in the field, within a much larger plot that includes cyberwar and the use of weapons with cutting-edge technology.
This, together with the effect on the population, during a working day and on important economic activities (a beginning of the week) and vital for health, food and daily peace, combine with a context of siege that has protagonists from Washington and Florida in which politicians promote a “civic face” in Juan Guaidó, who continues to seek political capital among his followers in the framework of Operation Liberty, so announced and whose effects on the conspiracy stage, includes mercenary and terrorist cells and theft of public assets in private hands. The intimate tragedies of the Venezuelan people are, once again, the oxygen of their aspirations to power in Venezuela.
However, in this phase of the war, where sabotage plans are tactical actions capable of influencing both the economic and the political spheres, episodes of continuous coup increasingly lead to a scenario of war with destructive intervention by the United States, so we must not overlook the fact that this new attack came a few days after a Russian military delegation landed in Venezuela regarding the activation of the S-300 anti-missile that the State governed by Nicolas Maduro purchased from Russia.
Transmission Line Failure Caused Electrical Load Loss This Wednesday: Equipment Repair Continues at Guri
The vice-president of Communication, Culture and Tourism of Venezuela, Jorge Rodriguez, reported that a failure in a transmission line of the national electrical system, occurred at 5:04 in the morning this Wednesday, generated a loss of load in a part of the national territory, causing a cut in the electricity supply at that time that is being resolved. “We are investigating the reasons, but we have not paused in the repair of equipment. He reported that at 9 a.m. cargo had already been distributed in the Greater Caracas and the southern and eastern regions of the country.
Rodríguez explained that last Monday the country was faced with an attack against the main hydroelectric plants (Guri, Caruachi and Macagua), because they were trying to damage them to generate a situation of chaos that could last for weeks.
President Nicolás Maduro immediately deployed two measures for the recovery of the National Electric Service:
1) The repair in record time of all the damages in the Guri Hydroelectric Power Plant, in order to give stability to the National Electric System.
2) To create an alternative process of distribution of electric power so that our population, while the equipment was being repaired, can enjoy electric service.
Translation by Internationalist 360°