The transmission company that triggered this claims a safety mechanism misfired, taking down the main and backup lines. After this 200km section shut down it triggered cascading failures. I heard on the radio that one substation exploded, but didn't find news about it[^1].
Power was partially restored within 44 minutes, but it was more like 2-6hrs before it was back and stable depending on the area.
---
I'm not too mad at the initial outage, this kind of thing happens, but I'm ashamed of how many emergency contingencies didn't work great. In Chile we kind of expect a natural disaster to take down power or communications in a large area without much warning due to earthquakes.
For instance power is meant to go down locally after a ~7 M_{W} earthquake as a safety feature, so it's going to go down even if it's no one's fault, but the protocols and safety nets didn't work great. Traffic was a mess in cities, particularly Santiago which heavily relies on the subway to get people around, some critical infrastructure had no backup power (Mobile antennas, few Hospitals).
Some people reacted poorly IMO, many went to fill up their gas tanks when it made absolutely no sense to me. I guess we really need solar to spread more so people don't even think about using their cars to charge their phones.
I'm also annoyed that most modern cellphones have no AM/FM receivers. Mobile coverage and networks are good, but they stands no chance if everyone suddenly tries to use them.
[^1]: I guess a mix of a power surge together with high temperatures triggered this. I've seen a small transformer explode as it got shorted and light up the cooling oil.
Power was partially restored within 44 minutes, but it was more like 2-6hrs before it was back and stable depending on the area.
---
I'm not too mad at the initial outage, this kind of thing happens, but I'm ashamed of how many emergency contingencies didn't work great. In Chile we kind of expect a natural disaster to take down power or communications in a large area without much warning due to earthquakes. For instance power is meant to go down locally after a ~7 M_{W} earthquake as a safety feature, so it's going to go down even if it's no one's fault, but the protocols and safety nets didn't work great. Traffic was a mess in cities, particularly Santiago which heavily relies on the subway to get people around, some critical infrastructure had no backup power (Mobile antennas, few Hospitals). Some people reacted poorly IMO, many went to fill up their gas tanks when it made absolutely no sense to me. I guess we really need solar to spread more so people don't even think about using their cars to charge their phones.
I'm also annoyed that most modern cellphones have no AM/FM receivers. Mobile coverage and networks are good, but they stands no chance if everyone suddenly tries to use them.
[^1]: I guess a mix of a power surge together with high temperatures triggered this. I've seen a small transformer explode as it got shorted and light up the cooling oil.