- By Will Grant & Alys Davies
- BBC News, Mexico and London
March 2, 2023 at 01:22 GMT
Updated 15 minutes ago
picture description,
A woman buys water at a store in the dark in Buenos Aires
Power has been largely restored in Argentina after more than half the country was without power for several hours.
More than 20 million people in major cities and large parts of the country were affected on Wednesday.
The cause of the blackout is said to have been a major fire in open fields west of the capital Buenos Aires.
The fire brought down key power lines and forced a nuclear power plant to shut down.
The blackout comes amid a heatwave and drought in Argentina – with temperatures consistently above 35C (95F) in some parts of the country.
In some regions, daily life came to a standstill, classes were suspended, businesses closed and many were left without air conditioning or refrigeration.
Water supplies were cut and some got stuck on public transport, which ground to a halt.
Alejandra Rodriguez, a waitress in Buenos Aries, told AFP that her business is struggling without a generator.
The worst part of the “ordeal” was not knowing how long the blackout would last, she added.
“We can’t work, we can’t clean ourselves, our bathrooms have run out of water, we can’t take care of people.”
There have already been several minor outages this year, coinciding with the dry and hot conditions.
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People stood in a long line outside the Constitucion subway station in Buenos Aires due to a power outage
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Businesses in Buenos Aires were hit by a nationwide power outage in 2019