Chile Gradually Restores Power to Affected Regions After 8.8-Magnitude Quake

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Chile experienced an 8.8 magnitude earthquake the morning hours on Saturday, February 27, with the epicenter near the city of Concepcion, which is 509 kilometers south of Santiago, Chile's capital city. There were several aftershocks throughout Saturday and Sunday.

The country's power grid continues to be fragile after the massive earthquake that killed more than 700 people, said Marcelo Tokman, Chile's energy minister. Still, power rationing is not needed at the moment, and there is an availability of fuels for generation.

Power had been restored to about 90% of Santiago by Monday, but the hardest-hit regions of the country, like the city of Concepcion, still had serious problems with power supply.

According to local press reports, Concepcion and the cities of Talcahuano, Tome and San Pedro de la Paz were without power two days after the quake. In central region V, coastal areas continued to be the most affected. The port town of San Antonio had no power, and Valparaiso and Viña del Mar were gradually being brought back online, according to local newspapers.

The government is now working closely with distribution, generation, and transmission companies and emergency organisms to coordinate activities to repair damages in infrastructure and the distribution network to restore the power supply to all affected regions.

According to Marcelo Tokman, the problem is not with generation or transmission, but with distribution.

Chilean power distributor Chilectra has reconnected 89% of its distribution clients in metropolitan Santiago, the company informed. On Monday, power service was reestablished to 81,000 clients, mostly in northern parts of the city.

On the other hand, Chilean power distributor CGE said that it will be able to restore power to about 60% of its clients in Concepción during the next three days.

At the same time, the catastrophe has affected water supply from regions V-IX. In region V, four districts have only partial water supply, while 4,500 have no access to water in the metropolitan region.

Chilectra, subsidiary of the Enersis Group, is the main distributor of energy for Chile, with more than 1.5 million clients. Its area covers 2,037 square kilometers, including 33 communities in the Metropolitan Region.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy related markets. For more than 26 years, Industrial Info has provided plant and project opportunity databases, market forecasts, high resolution maps, and daily industry news.z