A massive power grid failure plunged the entire Dominican Republic into darkness on Tuesday, leaving millions without electricity and creating chaos in the capital city.
The nationwide blackout, which struck at 1:23 p.m. local time, paralyzed Santo Domingo’s traffic systems, shut down the metro and cable car services, and forced passengers to evacuate trains and walk through tunnels alongside the tracks, authorities reported.
The unprecedented outage exposed the Caribbean nation’s vulnerability despite decades of investment in diverse power generation. While hospitals and banks operated on backup generators, homes and small businesses remained powerless.
“Traffic is already in chaos in eastern Santo Domingo, there is not a single traffic light on,” said Tomás Ozuna, 37, heading to his night shift as an IT technician. “I don’t know how we’ll work.”
Bank employee Lissa Fernández, 26, faced a different predicament.
“At my work there is light, there is power, but at my house, there isn’t, and the subway isn’t working,” she said, per the Associated Press.
The Dominican Electricity Transmission Company (ETED) attributed the total blackout to a transmission system malfunction.
“The electric power service is currently experiencing a blackout caused by a fault originating in the transmission system,” the company stated.
Power plants in San Pedro de Macorís and Quisqueya triggered a cascade failure across the entire grid. ETED deployed technical teams but provided no timeline for restoration.
The outage hit small businesses hard. Barbershop owner Leonel Encarnación struggled to retain customers without air conditioning, despite using battery-powered equipment.
“I am still here because the machines have batteries, there are customers who come, but there are others who leave. Just now it was full, and since the air conditioning went off, they left,” Encarnación explained, AP reported.
Such complete blackouts are rare in the Dominican Republic. The country’s diverse energy matrix includes coal, natural gas, fuel oil, and smaller amounts of solar, wind, and hydroelectric power.
Typically, when one plant shuts down for maintenance, others compensate. Tuesday’s total failure marked an exceptional breakdown of that backup system.
By Tuesday evening, about 33% of the national power demand had been restored, the BBC reported. Early Wednesday, at 2:20 a.m., Energy and Mines Minister Joel Santos announced that all power generation plants in the Dominican Republic were back online and the electric grid was operating at full capacity, per the Dominican Today.
The Failure Committee was scheduled to meet on Wednesday at 10 a.m. to investigate the circumstances leading to the blackout.