On Tuesday afternoon, 25 February, Chile experienced a widespread power outage that affected 98 per cent of households in the country. The affected region covered 14 of Chile’s 16 regions with a north-south extension of more than 3,000 kilometres (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2025; The Guardian, 2025). The cause of the blackout was an unplanned shutdown of a high-voltage line in the northern region of Chico Norte. This triggered a chain reaction that led to the automatic shutdown of other lines. The exact reasons for this are still being investigated (Tagesspiegel, 2025).
In response to the outage, the Chilean government declared a ‘state of emergency’ on Tuesday evening and ordered a night-time curfew from 10 pm to 6 am. To maintain public safety, 3,000 armed forces were mobilised and deployed together with the police (Tagesschau, 2025).
The power outage caused considerable disruption to transport: trains and underground trains came to a standstill, meaning that passengers had to rely on emergency services to get them out of the carriages. Mobile phone networks, traffic lights and ATMs also failed across the country (Tagesschau, 2025; The Guardian, 2025). In the coastal town of Viña del Mar, Latin America’s most important music festival had to be cancelled (Tagesspiegel, 2025). The economically important mining sector in the north of the country was also particularly affected. Production had to be interrupted in many copper mines, although some remained at least partially operational thanks to emergency power generators (Tagesschau, 2025). Hospitals, prisons and government buildings also relied on emergency power to keep essential systems running The Guardian, 2025).
By 10 p.m. local time, power had been restored to around a fifth of the 19 million inhabitants (Tagesschau, 2025). Since midnight, around 90 per cent of private households have been connected to the grid again (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2025).
Status 26.02.2025 14:30
(Image source: Tagesschau)