Power outages across three provinces

June 27th, 2017, an explosion occurred in an electrical substation in Penonome shutting down Panama’s metro line, causing traffic chaos, and trapping people in elevators throughout Panama City.

Etesa said that the problem was detected in the substation, El Coco in Penonomé. The outage affected areas in Panama City, Panama West, Chiriquí and Colón. The most serious issues occurred in Panama City where the fire department needed to rescue people from elevators and the metro evacuated. 

The outage began at noon yesterday and continued for several hours leaving homes and businesses in several provinces without power for three and a half hours.

The Electric Transmission Company, S.A,(Etesa) reported that 100% of the electrical load in the country had been restored. at 3:30 p.m.

Etesa said that the problem was detected in the substation, El Coco in Penonomé. The outage affected areas in Panama City, Panama West, Chiriquí and Colón.