Accordingly, the National Emergency Operations Committee (COE) determined that this Sunday 12 provinces will have power outages, as part of a contingency plan that contemplates declaring red alert (the highest) for 19 of the 24 jurisdictions here.

The COE reiterated that “the extreme drought” has also led to the occurrence of forest fires, affecting agriculture, the hydroelectric production system, water availability and food sovereignty.

The National Electricity Operator (Cenace) warned that the greatest concern is the most serious phase of the dry season, which begins in October.

Meanwhile, the Government announced that tomorrow it will begin applying eight-hour blackout periods throughout the national territory, in response to the electricity generation crisis.

The Presidency detailed in a statement that taking into account the services breakdowns, the teleworking modality will be implemented in the public sector during the four days of nightly power outages.

Last Monday, the president of the College of Electrical Engineers of Pichincha, Marco Acuña, warned that the Ecuadorian electrical system is “totally weakened,” a situation that worsens the crisis in that sector.

Acuña reiterated the need to apply maintenance throughout the Ecuadorian electrical system. “It has not been done and as a consequence of that we have a good amount of the generating system not producing energy. This should have been supported years ago.”

Ied/oda/nta