A highway shoulder in Caracas has turned into one of the city’s most sought-after destinations — it is one of the few places residents could find the slightest cellphone signal strong enough to reach loved ones around the world during Venezeula’s worst blackout.
“My siblings who live abroad are so worried about me,” said Ana Maria Suarez Napolitano, a 48-year-old attorney who had pulled over to the side of the major highway running through Caracas. “They ask if I have enough food, enough water.”
Much of Venezuela went dark on Thursday last week, forcing residents to struggle since then through long periods in the dark without consistent electricity, running water, cellphone service and Internet.
Photo: Bloomberg
Residents with vehicles gravitated to a few stretches of highway and off-ramps around Caracas. They were guided by the sight of bars on their cellphones and the dozens of other vehicles clogging up traffic as drivers squeezed to the roadside while holding their phones in one hand.
“We’re looking for a signal like everybody else,” said Valeria Mendoza, a 20-year-old communications student. “There’s no light, no water, no nothing.”
The glow of Mendoza’s cellphone showed on her face as she sat on Monday evening in the passenger seat of her father’s vehicle with her younger brother in the back seat. She had just called her mother in the US, calming her fears by saying they were together and safe.
The lights have flickered back to life in most parts of the country, but intermittent outages persist as the government struggles to restore basic services that have been in decline for years, and some pockets of the country experienced a sixth day in the dark.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blames the blackout on cyberattacks he claims were launched by the US as part of an effort to oust him and clear the way for Venezeulan National Assembly President Juan Guaido, who has declared himself interim president and vowed to hold free and fair elections.
US officials and the opposition have denied any part in the failure, instead blaming two decades of rampant corruption and mismanagement in the once wealthy nation, first by former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and now under Maduro.
Tensions escalated late on Monday, when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US was withdrawing its remaining embassy staff, citing Venezuela’s deteriorating situation and the “constraint on US policy” caused by their continued presence in the country.
Maduro’s government disputed Pompeo’s account, saying early on Tuesday that it had instructed the US diplomats to leave within 72 hours because talks on keeping some US representation had collapsed due to hostility from Washington.
Their presence “entails risks for the peace, integrity and stability of the country,” Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza said in a statement. “These are the same officials that have systematically lied to the world about Venezuela’s reality and personally directed fake, flag-waving operations to justify an intervention.”
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