What happened

Venezuela experienced a series of large-scale power outages beginning 27 August 2024, when an outage affected 12 states for approximately 1.5 hours before power began to be restored. A much larger outage followed on 30 August 2024, affecting more than 20 of Venezuela's states and an estimated 80% of the country; restoration took around 12 hours in most affected areas but reportedly took up to 20 hours in the harder-hit western states of Zulia, Falcón and Lara. Further intermittent outages affecting Caracas and other states were reported through at least 5 September 2024. The Maduro government publicly attributed the outages to 'electrical sabotage' and 'terrorist attacks,' with Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello naming opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González and announcing 11 arrests by 4 September, without providing public evidence for the sabotage allegation. Independent energy experts and opposition figures instead pointed to decades of underinvestment, poor maintenance and mismanagement of Venezuela's generation and transmission infrastructure as the more likely explanation, consistent with a pattern of similar large-scale Venezuelan blackouts in prior years (including 2019) that were also accompanied by disputed government sabotage claims. No independent technical determination of the cause was identified in the sources reviewed, so this record is classified as disputed rather than as a confirmed attack or a confirmed accidental failure.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.