Ecuador restores power after substation explosion

Electricity was restored across Ecuador on Tuesday after ⁠an explosion ⁠at a power substation triggered outages in several provinces, the government ⁠said.

Environment and Energy Minister Juan Carlos Blum said in a post on X that power had been fully restored nationwide.

Earlier, Ecuador’s national power authority said an early-morning ⁠explosion at ⁠the Paute Molino substation forced the Paute Integral complex, one of the country’s main hydroelectric plants, offline.

State-owned utility Corporacion Electrica del Ecuador said authorities ⁠worked with distribution companies to impose scheduled outages in parts of the country while repairs were carried out.

Quito’s power distributor said at ⁠least ‌15 ‌neighborhoods in the capital ⁠were affected.

The ‌government did not say what caused the ⁠explosion or specify ⁠which provinces were hit.