Brazil: Almost Half a Million Residents in Sao Paulo Still Without Power Following Storm

In Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, more than 400,000 customers were still without electricity on Monday, three days after a violent storm swept through the region, causing widespread power outages, said the power distribution company Enel, AP reports.

The storm, which featured winds of up to 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour), resulted in at least seven fatalities, as reported by authorities.

It also uprooted many large trees, some of which fell onto power lines, leading to complete blackouts in various neighborhoods.

At its peak on Friday, approximately 4.2 million residents were left without power, as indicated by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

In some apartment buildings, condominium associations took the initiative to provide bottles of drinking water to older residents affected by the outage.

Residents Are Without Water, Too

José Eraudo Júnior, the administrator of a 15-floor building in Sao Paulo's Butantã neighborhood, shared that electricity was lost for all 430 apartments on Friday night, per ABC News.

Furthermore, the building's water reserves in the roof tanks were depleted by Saturday evening, as the lack of power prevented using pumps to access underground water reserves.

On Sunday, residents resorted to using buckets or empty bottles to collect water from the building's swimming pool to flush their toilets. With elevators not operational, some individuals had to carry water up 15 floors on foot.

"It's not very common to see such a big power outage," said Eduardo Júnior, emphasizing the unprecedented nature of the situation.

Enel Distribuição Sao Paulo, one of the three companies responsible for providing electricity in Sao Paulo, Brazil, stated on Monday that it had already restored power to 1.7 million of its 2.1 million affected customers, which equates to slightly over 80%.

The company expressed the expectation that electricity would be fully restored to nearly all customers by the following day.

Enel cited the storm as the strongest in recent years, causing extensive damage to the distribution network.

Sao Paulo Brazil's Powerlines Are Outdated

Brazil's Justice Minister Flavio Dino announced that the government would seek an explanation from the company regarding the blackout, Reuters reports.

The Sao Paulo state prosecutors' office also pledged to investigate the prolonged power outage and assess whether ENEL had sufficient staff to manage emergencies in the 24 districts it serves.

Many residents expressed their frustration over the situation, with some blaming the city for inadequate tree pruning in the streets.

ENEL assured customers that power supplies would be fully restored by Tuesday.

The outage had a significant impact on people's daily lives, with individuals losing perishable food and the ability to refrigerate medicine.

Some residents had to seek alternative accommodations to access hot showers and air conditioning.

Additionally, concerns were raised about the outdated power infrastructure and the need for investments in burying power cables in the city to prevent such disruptions.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

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