Venezuelan government blames 'electromagnetic attack' for nationwide blackout

The ongoing blackout has left nearly the entire country without power, including the capital Caracas.

About 94% of Venezuela's telecommunications infrastructure has been affected by the outage, and internet connectivity is only running at 10% nationwide, according to Netblocks, a non-profit organization dedicated to tracking outages.

The exact cause of the outage remains unclear, but as with previous blackouts, officials are pointing the finger at hostile attackers.

People on cars, motorbikes and on foot crowd in Caracas after Venezuela was hit by a massive power cut on July 22, 2019.

A government statement called the blackout "an electromagnetic attack," though stopped short of providing details about who might have been behind the alleged attack or how it was carried out.

The statement added that authorities were working to restore power services as quickly as possible, while working to address drinking water access, transport systems, and needs at health centers.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that the armed forces had been mobilized to help deal with what he termed a "criminal attack against the tranquility and the peace of the homeland."

Blackouts have become a daily occurrence across Venezuela as the economic crisis has worsened, but one of this magnitude is rare.

The country saw three major blackouts in March alone, with residents in poorer areas of Caracas and outside the capital hit the hardest.

People crossing a street in Caracas on July 22, 2019 as the capital and other parts of Venezuela are being hit by a massive power cut.

The March blackouts stopped mass transit in Caracas, shuttered businesses and gas stations, and disrupted operations at hospitals. Millions were left without water access for days, forcing some to travel huge distances to collect water at rivers or streams.

Some rural areas in the Venezuelan countryside never fully recovered from the March blackouts, with power continuously cutting in and out for hours or days at a time.

The outages exacerbated a broader political crisis that has gripped the country for years. Runaway inflation and food scarcity has crippled Venezuela, with tens of thousands leaving the country in a mass exodus.

Venezuela darkened by third major blackout this month

As the March outages left the country in the dark, Caracas saw dueling protests by supporters of Maduro and of opposition leader Juan Guaido, who more than 50 countries, including the United States, have recognized as Venezuela's interim president.

Then, as he is doing now, Maduro blamed the blackout on hostile attacks, accusing the United States of sabotaging power plants and the electricity grid.

The US denied the charges, and has pulled all diplomatic personnel from its embassy in Caracas. Meanwhile, Guaido and his supporters accuse Maduro of mismanaging the income from the country's massive oil reserves and failing to maintain public infrastructure.

Guaido took to Twitter on Monday, calling the recurring blackouts a "latent humanitarian catastrophe" and lambasting "the corruption and incapacity of the regime."

Mallika Kallingal, Maria Ramirez Uribe, Vasco Cotovio and Ralph Ellis contributed reporting.

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