Ecuador sees nationwide power outage as electrical grid fails

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https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240619-nationwide-power-outage-in-ecuador-faulty-transmission-line-blamed

Ecuador sees nationwide power outage as electrical grid fails

Ecuador suffered a nationwide blackout for several hours Wednesday as the electrical grid failed, with metro services, road traffic and other critical services crippled.

Issued on: 20/06/2024 - 00:55
2 min

By: NEWS WIRES

The blackout hit abruptly just after 3:00 pm local time, surprising subway riders in the capital Quito as trains came to a halt and hundreds of people were evacuated.

Some were forced to walk long distances through dark metro tunnels until finding an exit.

Three hours after the stoppage hit, Energy Minister Roberto Luque said on X that 95 percent of the service had been restored nationwide.

Earlier, he had announced a "breakdown in the transmission line, which caused a chain of disconnections" leading to a countrywide failure.

[...]

[Judi Lynn]

1. President Noboa will know what to do. He'll call his father, who has been Ecuador's wealthiest man, banana magnate,

and 5-time Presidential election loser, Álvaro Noboa, and they will have a chef make Bananas Flambé for them while they consider the problem.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Ecuador: Widespread Labor Abuse on Banana Plantations: Harmful Child Labor, Anti-Union Bias Plague Industry

Ecuador: Widespread Labor Abuse on Banana Plantations
Harmful Child Labor, Anti-Union Bias Plague Industry

Banana workers in Ecuador are the victims of serious human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today.

In its investigation, Human Rights Watch found that Ecuadorian children as young as eight work on banana plantations in hazardous conditions, while adult workers fear firing if they try to exercise their right to organize. Ecuador is the world’s largest banana exporter and the source of roughly one quarter of all bananas on the tables of U.S. and European consumers.

Banana-exporting corporations such as Ecuadorian-owned Noboa and Favorita, as well as Chiquita, Del Monte, and Dole fail to use their financial influence to insist that their supplier plantations respect workers’ rights, the report found. Dole leads the pack of foreign multinationals in sourcing from Ecuador, obtaining nearly one third of all its bananas from the country.

“The Ecuadorian bananas on your table may have been produced under appalling conditions,” said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. “Banana companies have a duty to uphold workers’ rights. Ecuador is obligated under international law to do so.”

More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/24/ecuador-widespread-labor-abuse-banana-plantations