See the recovery efforts in Gaza as ceasefire appears to hold 'Is everything I'm trying to do pointless? ': Syrians helpless in face of 'sham' election Brother of journalist detained in Myanmar says family is hopeful Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs Residents stand near stalls along a road amidst debris while strong winds batter Balasore district in Odisha state on May 26, 2021 as Cyclone Yaas barrels towards India's eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo by Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP) (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images) France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame speak as they walk in the grounds of The Presidential Palace in Kigali on May 27, 2021, after their press conference and prior to their official luncheon. - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Rwanda on May 27, 2021, for a highly symbolic visit aimed at moving on from three decades of diplomatic tensions over France's role in the 1994 genocide in the country. Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the East African nation, which has long accused France of complicity in the killing of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi Rwandans. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images) Relative of detained Iranian-Americans fears they will not survive Residents cross a street in the dark after a power outage in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, March 7, 2019. A power outage left much of Venezuela in the dark early Thursday evening in what appeared to be one of the largest blackouts yet in a country where power failures have become increasingly common. Crowds of commuters in capital city Caracas were walking home after metro service ground to a halt and traffic snarled as cars struggled to navigate intersections where stoplights were out. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) (CNN) — Most of Venezuela still had no power Friday evening, more than 20 hours after a massive outage left over 70% of the country without electricity. The blackout stopped mass transit in the capital of Caracas, shuttering businesses, gas stations and even disrupting operations at hospitals. Mauro Zambrano, representative of the hospitals and clinics union of Caracas, told CNN there have been four deaths at hospitals. One death took place at the Magallanes Hospital and another at the University Hospital, Zambrano said, adding that even though both hospitals had electricity “there were some failures.” The other two deaths took place at the Children’s Hospital and at the Miguel Carreño Hospital where a premature baby girl died, Zambrano said. CNN has not independently verified any of the four deaths. There are also issues at other hospitals, Zambrano said, like the pediatric unit at El Algodonal Hospital in Caracas being closed for 15 days, the electrical failures at the Periferico Hospital in Catia or how the Coche Peripherial Hospital has been closed for four months due to electrical failures. “Generators are not able to make the hospitals run, even though personnel do as much as they can,” Zambrano said. “We have hospitals with operating rooms that 80% non-functional, medical equipments aren’t working.” State broadcaster VTV reported that some power had been restored but provided no specific numbers or locations. Authorities quickly blamed the blackout on anti-government saboteurs. Speaking on VTV, Electricity Minister Luis Motta Dominguez called the blackout an “electricity war” and act of sabotage. He alleged, without offering evidence, that the attack took place at Venezuela’s main hydroelectric power station in Guri in the southern state of Bolivar, which provides about 70% of the country’s energy. “This is an attack (on) the government, this is an attack (on) the people and there are communities that in less than 15 minutes had already gone out to protest and close streets,” Dominguez said. “People generally wait until service is reestablished. So, this verifies and confirms that this was pre-planned,” the minister said. A former electricity executive at Venezuela’s National Electric Corp. told CNN that the outage at the power station was most likely the result of old equipment and bad maintenance. “That damage happened because the machines are old,” Miguel Lara said. “There are not any spare parts or enough people to upgrade the system.” YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images Women look out from an apartment building during a power outage Thursday in Caracas. Blackouts have become a daily occurrence across Venezuela as the economic crisis has worsened, but one of this magnitude is rare. Rampant inflation and food scarcity have gripped the country under embattled President Nicolas Maduro, and thousands have fled to neighboring countries as shortages, political turmoil and crime rates have soared. Reuters reported local media as saying this outage affected the capital, Caracas, as well as at least 15 of the country’s 23 states. Vanessa Suarez, from Ureña, said she and her family still have no water and electricity. “There is no power, no water, nothing. We are here to ask for diapers and food because there’s nothing there,” Suarez said. One woman on the bridges in Cúcuta – she did not want to be named for fear of her safety – told CNN she hasn’t had electricity for four days. She’s from Carpacho, west of San Cristobal, and says all their food has gone bad. Sandra, from Barquisimeto, says it took her 12 hours to get to Cúcuta to buy food that will last her family a week. “We have spent one day with no power, no internet, no cell service,” Sandra said, adding that this is her first time crossing through the “trocha,” or the dirt paths since Venezuela hasn’t opened their border. Sandra, who was fearful of giving her last name, is from Lara State and says it is the worst state to live in. “For the few people that can have meat in the fridge, the meat has gone bad,” she said. “It has been over 24 hours that we don’t have power.” Critics of Venezuela’s government blame corruption and underinvestment, with opposition leader Juan Guaido – who declared himself the country’s acting president in January – describing the blackout as further proof that time is almost up for Maduro. “Venezuela knows that the light will arrive with the end of the usurpation,” Guaido tweeted. YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images Nicolas Maduro's government blamed the outage on sabotage against the main electric power dam. Just over an hour later, Maduro posted on Twitter: “The electric war announced and led by the American imperialism against our people will be defeated. Nothing and no one can beat the people of Bolivar and Chavez. Maximum unity of the Patriots!” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hit back at Maduro, blaming him for the situation. The power outage and the devastation hurting ordinary Venezuelans is not because of the USA. It’s not because of Colombia. It’s not Ecuador or Brazil, Europe or anywhere else. Power shortages and starvation are the result of the Maduro regime’s incompetence. — Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) March 8, 2019 “The power outage and the devastation hurting ordinary Venezuelans is not because of the USA. It’s not because of Colombia. It’s not Ecuador or Brazil, Europe or anywhere else. Power shortages and starvation are the result of the Maduro regime’s incompetence,” Pompeo tweeted. “Maduro’s policies bring nothing but darkness,” he added in a separate message. Then he tweeted, “No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro.” Journalist Stefano Pozzebon reported from Caracas, while CNN’s Bianca Britton wrote in London. CNN’s Claudia Dominguez, Natalie Gallón, Jaide Garcia and Amir Vera contributed to this report.<doc-sep>Venezuela, which has been roiled by a political struggle between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó, has been hit by outages before. But the blackout that began Thursday evening is the longest and most widespread in recent memory, a sign of the rapid deterioration of the economy, which is expected to contract sharply in the next few weeks as U.S. sanctions on the oil industry begin to bite. Some analysts even worry that the country — once among the richest in South America — could face famine.<doc-sep>A few months earlier another senior official, Lisandro Cabello, said the power cuts were caused by the country's position near the Equator. He said the fact that "we are very close to the Sun" means more intensive use of power in Venezuela than in other countries.<doc-sep>
CARACAS, Venezuela — Much of Venezuela remained without electricity Tuesday as a new power outage spread across the country in what many feared will be a repeat of the chaos during the nation’s largest-ever blackout earlier this month. The outage began around midday Monday and appeared to have affected the majority of Venezuela’s 23 states. While the lights flickered back on in many parts after officials declared service would be restored within hours, the grid collapsed again in the late evening, knocking out communications and leaving much of the South American country bracing for the worst. “Venezuela doesn’t stand a chance anymore, there is no life here,” said Johnny Vargas, a frustrated restaurant worker who wishes he could leave the country. “People can’t work anymore; we can’t do anything.” As with the previous outage, President Nicolás Maduro’s government blamed U.S.-backed opponents, accusing them of sabotaging the Guri dam, which supplies the bulk of Venezuela’s electricity. “A macabre, perverse plan constructed in Washington and executed with factions of the extreme Venezuelan right,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez declared on state television, describing it as an “electromagnetic” assault. Officials said the “attack” had been controlled, but their assurances, similar to ones the last time around, did little to calm the anger of residents in Caracas who filled traffic-clogged streets as they walked home after subway service in the capital was suspended on Monday. Their patience grew increasingly thin when a second outage struck late into the night, with residents in some neighborhoods banging on pots and pans in pitch black to express their growing frustration. On Tuesday morning, banks, shops and other businesses in Caracas were closed. Sitting on a bench in a plaza, 72-year-old Armando Taioli said he believed the nationwide blackout was the result of years of neglect of the power grid, compounded by pressures on the system from an expanding population. He gestured at people walking in the streets or traveling in buses and said they were adapting as best they could, but that he fears social unrest if the situation deteriorates. “That calm, you have to be worried about it,” Taioli said. Netblocks, a non-government group based in Europe that monitors internet censorship, said the late evening outage had knocked offline nearly 90 percent of Venezuela’s telecommunications infrastructure. Even the powerful state TV apparatus was down. The outages come as Maduro is fighting to keep power amid a revived opposition movement and punishing economic sanctions from the U.S. The Trump administration, which is campaigning to remove Maduro, has denied any role in the outages. Meanwhile, electricity experts and opposition leader Juan Guaidó fault years of state graft and incompetence. Maduro’s government says it is following socialist principles championed by leader Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013. “This outage is evidence that the dictator is incapable of resolving the crisis,” opposition leader Juan Guaidó wrote on Twitter. Guaidó, who the U.S. and dozens of other countries recognize as Venezuela’s rightful leader, said he was meeting with aides to determine actions “to express the indignation of the entire population.” The government seeks to discredit Guaidó, presenting what it claims to be evidence purporting to show opposition plans to hire mercenaries from Central America to carry out targeted killings and acts of sabotage. During a news conference in the middle of the blackout Monday, Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez showed screenshots of what are purportedly private text messages between Guaidó, his mentor Leopoldo López and other opposition insiders discussing payment details to the hired guns through banks in Europe and Panama. The opposition has yet to comment but normally shrugs off such charges as attempts by the government to shift blame for its own ineptitude. Late Monday, Lilian Tintori, the wife of López, said a group of government loyalists on motorcycles besieged her home in eastern Caracas, shouting epithets against her husband and warning he would soon be thrown back in jail. López has been under house arrest following his conviction for stirring anti-government unrest in 2014 in a case marred by irregularities. FOLLOW NBC LATINO ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM.