‘Unacceptable situation’: Minister cries foul as Jamaica suffers blackout

Jamaica has recovered from a rare islandwide power outage that plunged the Caribbean nation into darkness Friday night. Energy Minister Daryl Vaz announced Saturday morning that power had been restored to all affected customers, urging residents to report any lingering issues.

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all affected customers have been restored

Both Vaz and Prime Minister Andrew Holness deemed the situation "unacceptable." The outage began around 9 p.m. local time Friday, impacting the island's 2.8 million residents. The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), the island's sole electricity distributor, is investigating the cause of the widespread failure.

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unacceptable

By early Saturday morning, JPS reported that 20% of customers had power restored. Minister Vaz provided an update later that morning, stating that electricity had returned to 500,000 of JPS's 700,000 customers overnight, with the remainder expected to be restored soon. Vaz has demanded a full report from JPS within 24 hours detailing the outage's cause.

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unacceptable

The timing of the blackout, at the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, raised concerns about the grid's resilience against future weather events. Islandwide outages are uncommon in Jamaica, typically occurring only during severe weather emergencies, such as Hurricane Melissa last year, which caused significant damage.

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Our teams will be working throughout the night to restore additional customers as safely and quickly as possible.