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Credit, Luccas cavalcante
Blackout led Macapá residents to fetch water at gas station
Residents of Macapa, capital do Amapá, BBC News Brazil reported a chaotic situation on the fourth day without electricity in the city: food in the refrigerator spoiled, lack of water in taps and kilometer lines to get cash and refuel the car.
“We are abandoned and desperate. There is no way to wait 10 or 15 days for this situation to be resolved,” says Luccas Cavalcante, 20, a law student.
The power outage, caused by a fire in a substation in the capital, occurred on Tuesday night (11/03) and reached 13 of the 16 cities in the state.
In statements on Friday (11/06), the Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, stated that the restoration of 100% of the electricity in Amapá is “complex” and should take at least ten days.
The photos sent to the report and published on social networks show huge queues for the purchase of water, food and gasoline in neighborhoods of the capital.
In addition, as credit and debit card machines are turned off in stores, thousands of people wait hours in front of the few establishments with ATMs that operate through generators, one of them is at the Macapá International Airport, crowded with people looking for money.
Heat and lack of water
In the Jardim Marco Zero neighborhood, south of the capital, the energy of some streets has been recovered, but the area where the university student Luccas Cavalcante lives remains dark. He has been going to friends’ houses to be able to charge his family’s cell phones, in addition to looking for food and water.
“At home we lost all the food that was in the refrigerator. We are using rainwater or taking it from some neighbors who have an artesian well. There is also a single tap that works from the sanitation company, but the water is cloudy and does not you can drink. “, he explains.
The student says that last night he spent two hours in line at one of the few gas stations that are filling vehicles. “But in other, more centralized stations, there are people waiting up to eight hours to be able to refuel,” he says.
In the Renascer neighborhood, 20-year-old student Adelton Almeida Filho says his family is looking for drinking water in a nearby store, where a tap is running.
It is with her that the family bathes, cooks and quenches their thirst. “We have a well at home, but since there is no power, we cannot pump water,” he says.
According to him, the residents of the neighborhood who have electricity supplied by generators, are making water available to the neighbors. “Supermarkets have raised the price of mineral water a lot, to profit. A five-gallon gallon costs R $ 12, and before it cost R $ 5 or R $ 6,” he complains.
Credit, Luccas cavalcante
Without power at the city’s banks, there were long lines at the airport ATMs in the state capital
The student says that several of Renascer’s neighbors sleep in cars at night, due to the heat. “It is very hot in the city and many people cannot sleep inside the house without air conditioning,” he explains.
Bank employee Edson Azevedo dos Anjos, 57, faces the same problem. “Our food has already spoiled, we threw it away. A part that was still good, we share with the neighbors so as not to spoil it too. Thank God here we have a neighbor with an artesian well, and from time to time he can pass us a little water. ” , he explains.
He says that yesterday he spent five hours in line at the gas station to refuel the car. “We don’t have communication either, cell phones and the Internet don’t work well, they fluctuate a lot. We cannot do Internet banking and the banks are closed, ”he says.
Ana Karen Santos da Silva, a resident of downtown Macapá, has helped the neighbors, as her house is one of the few in the region that still has electricity and drinking water from the artesian well.
“Some friends of mine come from far away neighborhoods just to get water here at home. Or to charge their cell phone. I’m trying to help people however I can. We need to stay together until the situation is resolved,” he says.
What happened?
On Tuesday night, an explosion followed by a fire hit a transformer at a Macapá substation, according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy. The fire disabled the transformer and damaged another one.
It took emergency crews hours to fight the fire, Minister Bento Albuquerque said at a news conference on Thursday (11/5).
“A fire was reported in transformer 1 of the Macapá substation, owned by the Macapá Transmissória de Energia Lines (LMTE), with a total loss registered in the unit,” reported the National Electric System Operator (ONS), responsible for monitoring the supply throughout Brazil), in a note.
The cause of the fire is still unknown and ONS opened an investigation within 30 days to determine the causes and responsibilities.
The state of Amapá has around 860 thousand inhabitants, according to the IBGE projection for 2020. According to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, 85% of this population was affected by the blackout, that is, about 730 thousand people.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy announced three plans to restore power in the state. The first foresees that around 60% to 70% of the load will be attended by the end of this Friday afternoon. The other two establish a normalization period of 15 to 30 days.
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