Power has been restored to nearly all of Puerto Rico following a widespread blackout earlier this week, officials said Friday.
According to Luma Energy, the company responsible for managing the island’s power transmission and distribution, electricity had been returned to more than 1.45 million customers within 48 hours of the outage. That accounts for about 98.8% of affected users.
“While most of the restoration is complete, some customers may still experience temporary power interruptions due to limited energy generation,” Luma explained.
The outage, which began Wednesday afternoon, was triggered by the failure of a transmission line. That failure prompted a protective shutdown of generators across the island, plunging much of Puerto Rico into darkness. At the time, more than 400,000 residents also lost access to running water.
Authorities are still investigating the root cause of the blackout. Among the possibilities being explored are a malfunction involving several breakers or interference from overgrown vegetation.
Governor Jenniffer González said a preliminary report on the incident is expected within the coming days.
This is Puerto Rico’s second major blackout in less than four months. A similar island-wide outage occurred on New Year’s Eve, raising further concerns about the resilience of the power grid.