Caracas metro shuts down amidst Venezuela power outage

Reuters: Commuters in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas scrambled for a way to get home on Wednesday (August 29) after the metro system came to a standstill after a power failure left some areas of the city in the dark. Due to the "electrical power failure, no line of the Metro Caracas system will provide commercial service at this time," the state company said in a Twitter message. The outage left parts of eastern and central Caracas without power for about an hour. The president of state energy company Corpoelec, Luis Motta, appeared on state television, saying the outage had occurred because a cable outside Caracas had been cut, supporting government accusations that sabotage by opposition members was behind the incident. The blackout hit just as evening rush hour began on the metro system which has about 40 stations and carries about three million people daily, according to union officials. The outage is just the latest suffering inflicted on Venezuelans, who are in the fifth year of a political and economic crisis that has sparked shortages of food, water and medicine, hyperinflation, rolling blackouts and mass migration. The OPEC nation has the world's largest oil reserves and was once a thriving socialist economy.