MEXICO CITY – Electric power returned to three states on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula on Friday night, including tourist hot spots Cancun and Tulum, after a partial blackout left 1.6 million customers without energy, state-run power utility CFE said.
“Service has been 100 percent re-established in the three states thanks to the quick work of CFE workers,” the utility said in a statement.
CFE said that a brush fire between transmission towers had caused the power outage.
Power outages hit throughout the peninsula, which is dotted with Caribbean coastal resorts.
Places affected included Cancun and Tulum in the state of Quintana Roo, the city of Merida in Yucatan state, and the neighbouring state of Campeche, a major oil-producing region.
The General Director of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), veteran Mexican politician Manuel Bartlett initially said that only 74,000 people had been affected by the blackout, which unleashed thousands of protests by angry citizens on social networks.
Even former Mexican President Felipe Calderón energetically criticized Bartlett’s statement.
However, the CFE finally admitted that some 85 percent of all clients in the three states were affected by the blackout.
TYT Newsroom
