Maduro extended the suspension of work and school activities that went into effect on Sunday, after the blackout that affects all of Venezuela since last Thursday and that has already exceeded 100 continuous hours.

The measure was announced on Sunday to support the restitution of electricity, said the Chavez dictatorship.

The EFE agency has been able to verify that for workers and students it would be very difficult to fulfill its commitments in view of the collapse of public transport and the suspension of the Metro service, which has occurred since Thursday.

The regime asked to "support" the efforts to restore the service by applying the energy saving measures that the Chavez government has repeatedly ordered to face the constant falls in the service. (Of which they are the culprits for the lack of maintenance last their 20 years in power).

"Place the air conditioners at 22 or 23 degrees, do not keep the bulbs (bulbs) in the rooms that are unoccupied, keep the appliances plugged in," he said. Most of the country remains in the dark for 4 days, when there was a fault in the Guri hydroelectric power station, which supplies about 70% of the country.

Power cuts have been frequent in Venezuela since 2009, but they have become more pronounced in recent years, when the country entered into an economic crisis that the Maduro regime claims was caused by a "war" against its Administration.

Given this situation, this Monday the interim president Juan Guaidó declared the national emergency due to the blackout, which will rule for 30 days.

Chaos in some cities of Venezuela due to more than 100 hours of the blackout, looting takes over the streets

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Most of the cities of Venezuela after a dark week began to despair, as is the case of the city of Maracaibo, on Monday chaos reigned in the streets of "the city of the sun loved" when people began to loot business of several sectors in search of food and drinking water.

Some local stores in the city that were affected this March 11 were several small stores in the Curve de Molina retail food retail, the supermarket La Fiorela in the same place, the supermarket Aquarium in the urbanization La Rotaria, the supermarket Freshmarket in Circumvallation 2, the Paga Poco supermarket in the Las Cumbres sector, the La Zulianita and HO stores and the Cuatricentenario development, the La Coromoto bakery in the 18 de Octubre sector and other small shops in the Los Bucares road corridor.

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Guaidó to Maduro: After days hidden he leaves to mock the pain and dares to call it "vacations"

The president in charge of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, addressed Monday the leader of the usurping regime Nicolás Maduro for calling "holiday" the non-working days he announced after the mega blackout on March 7 that left much of the country in darkness and heightened the Venezuelan crisis.

Manifestó through the social network Twitter that "after days hidden, comes to mock the pain, the death of children and the sick, a crisis product of corruption and indolence."

He also ratified his call to leave the streets to exert pressure on the regime and recalled the demonstration for this Tuesday, March 12.

Out of desperation, citizens seek contaminated water in the Guaire River

The electrical crisis in the country now adds a new problem to Venezuelans lack of water. Citizens tired by the consequences of the blackout and lack of water, went to the Guaire River.

At the height of San Agustín, they improvised a take and made lines with their containers to collect that water that is contaminated.

Since Thursday of last week, with the general blackout that has affected Venezuela, services such as drinking water have been interrupted.

Faced with the lack of answers from the authorities, the citizens are looking for a way to stock up. In this case, they have not taken into account the contamination of the river.

Intt official came to intimidate NTN24 journalist and was overwhelmed by the reality of the water collectors of the Guaire River
Luis Gonzalo Pérez, the NTN24 reporter, sought to capture the moment in which Venezuelans resorted to the sewage of the Guaire River was aborted by the Lieutenant Commander, Juan Carlos Duque Moncada with a jacket from the National Institute of Land Transport (Intt).

The sailor tried to divert the reality of the neighbors of San Agustín by politicizing the interview with a frontal and aggressive style. However, the journalist did not lose the focus of the situation and give voice to the protesters.

The half Digital Caraota made a tour where he could observe the line of people with their containers in hand to get some water. The forest firemen of the El Avila national park collaborate with the citizens who have gone to the Pajarito station.

The electrical failure caused by a vegetation fire registered affected the three lines of 765 kilovolts between Guri and the substations Malena and San Gerónimo B, leaving the entire country without electricity since last Thursday. There are still states in which the service has not been restored and they go for 80 hours without electricity.

What did Erika Farías say about the people collecting water in the Guaire?

The mayor of the Libertador de Caracas municipality, Érika Farías, said Monday during an interview on Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV) that there are people trying to generate false news. "People are looking for water in natural intakes coordinated by the authorities,"

At the height of San Agustín, neighbors improvised a take and made lines with their containers to collect that water that is contaminated.

Venezuelans see helpless food rot after days of blackout

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Venezuelans see how their food rots and they face a race against time to save what they have left in the refrigerators of houses and restaurants, due to a national blackout that completes three days this Sunday.

Like medicines and other basic goods, access to food is very limited in the oil-producing country because of the shortage and its high cost, due to hyperinflation that the IMF projects in 10,000,000% by 2019. Food has become thus in one of the most precious goods in the middle of the crisis, with a minimum wage that hardly gives for two kilos of meat. Many have lost weight.

Guaidó will request the AN to declare a state of alarm in Venezuela

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The blackout that has much more than half of the country without power since Thursday, March 7. The president in charge of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, announced this Sunday, March 10, that he will ask the National Assembly (AN) to declare a state of national alarm.

The request will be formulated during an emergency session called for this Monday, March 11.

"In this way we will take immediate action regarding humanitarian aid. It is important to note that Venezuelans have the right to go out on the streets to protest and demand their rights, "said the AN president from the Legislative Palace.

He reported that, according to the registry of the Legislative Branch, only in eight states has it partially recovered, this Sunday, the electric service, which has suffered the worst failure in the history of Venezuela.

"The service has worked for a few hours or minutes. We come here to do what the regime can not: to face the country and address the crisis they generated themselves, "he said at a press conference.

He applauded that the mobilization this Saturday, which reached Victoria Avenue, was achieved in part thanks to the fact that many officials opened the pickets after the citizens talked with them.

"We remember on Victoria Avenue that this catastrophe had already been planned for some time in the National Assembly. We said that it was possible to serve her. In addition, this tragedy was not the product of the rain, as it happened in Vargas in 1999, "he added.

He concluded by addressing, again, the National Armed Forces: "To the high command: are they going to keep hiding the dictator? Or will they keep hiding behind the dictator? "

Crisis in health and negligence

Dr. Julio Castro, member of the commission for monitoring the humanitarian emergency of AN, reported that 15,000 dialysis patients are at risk due to energy failures.

"When a patient goes through one or more dialysis, there are problems with their health that could be irreversible. The impact of the energy deficit is just beginning, "he warned, giving a balance of the health sector in the press conference with Guaidó and the board of the AN.

He indicated that the Dr. Manuel Núñez Tovar University Hospital, in Maturín, where there is no electricity plant, remains without light. "There have been 15 deaths associated with energy failures," said the doctor, who praised the work of nurses and doctors who work with few resources.

The engineer José María De Viana, former president of Hidrocapital, explained that the blackout in Venezuela is only comparable with countries that are at war or submerged under a natural catastrophe.

"This huge tragedy occurs in one of the countries with the greatest power generation capacity. We are in the worst moment, because the continuous policies of contempt of the talent caused that it diminished the capacity of energy with respect to the need of maintenance and of operation of the equipment "

Why do experts deny the electrical sabotage?

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One hour and 20 minutes after the blackout occurred at 4.50 pm on Thursday, March 7, the Minister of Electric Energy, Luis Motta Domínguez, announced that it was a sabotage, a version seconded by Jorge Rodríguez, Minister of Communication and Information, who came to point out US Senator Marco Rubio as responsible. However, open and closed sources, some of them linked to Corpoelec, deny that claim and point to blame those who administer the electrical system

1. Guri is an area heavily guarded by members of the Armed Forces. It operates a special command and an armed group of the Army, a command of the National Guard and the internal security of Corpoelec, which makes it impossible to enter the area to commit sabotage.

2. The Scada system regulates and controls the Transmission Core Network. According to Jorge Rodríguez, the sabotage took place there, but José Aguilar, an engineer and expert in the electrical sector, affirms that the Scada can not be manipulated from the outside, so it discards the computer manipulation. The Scada is also not connected to any network, which makes the possibility of hacking unfeasible.

3. Sources linked to Corpoelec confirmed that a vegetation fire registered on Thursday afternoon affected the three 765 kilovolt lines between Guri and the Malena and San Gerónimo B substations.

4.The lines and the towers that sustain them are covered with vegetation because they have not been kept pruning and pruning for some years.

1. The 765 kv lines, which reach a length of 2,230 kilometers, are the largest contributor of electrical energy to the Transmission Core Network. It contributes 85 percent of the energy sent to the center of the country from the Guri, according to the engineer Miguel Lara, former manager of the Office of Planning of the Interconnected System (Opsi) until 2004.

2. The fire could generate overheating in the lines and in turn a load rejection that triggers the protections of the turbines that feed those lines in Guri.

3. The 765 kv lines are fed from the units that are in the Machine House 2 of the Guri. They are the units of greater power and can each generate about 730 megawatts. In 2018 it was known that four turbines of this Power House were out of service for maintenance. Now, with the failure of Thursday three were affected and its start is complex if you have no current excitation in their generators.

4. In the country there are installed 1,500 megawatts in Black Start units (starting without any current in the system) with which you can power the start-up of the thermoelectric plants and power the Guri generators.

5. External consultants presume that before the blackout on Thursday, March 7, they tried to reconnect some loads in Ciudad Bolivar or Guayana and generated a destabilization, which caused the Guri Turbine Control System not to adjust the speed and one of them began to accelerate and they had to stop. They suspect that the process was not adequate and the protections of the rest of the turbines went off, leaving them out of service.

6. Restoring the operability of the system in Guri is complicated if the protection and control systems of the country's main hydroelectric power plant are not in good condition because an almost perfect synchronization is needed.
   And to put into service the Guri-Malena-San Gerónimo lines (where the fire affectation occurred on Thursday), it is required that their stress, maneuver, control and protection equipment be well in these substations, explained the engineer Miguel Lara.

7. The biggest problem is transmission, says engineer Miguel Lara, connoisseur of the Transmission Core Network. "Even if they generate energy in Guri, they can not get it out without the 765 kilovolt system, which is where 85 percent of the energy is sent to the center of the country."

8. The weakness and deterioration of the electrical system, the lack of maneuvering equipment and command control of the substations, and the absence of qualified personnel make it difficult to solve the national blackout that this Saturday afternoon of March 9 is 48 hours.

9. The engineer Miguel Lara assures that the system could be recovered in two hours if it has all the equipment and qualified personnel, but since it was not, the time is "indeterminate".

10. Locating the points of affectation in the lines of 765 kv, which have a length of 2,230 kilometers, would be easy if the thermography or infrared ray systems that detect these anomalies were enabled. A breakdown of this type can be resolved in two hours if you have qualified technical personnel, spare parts and means of transport to facilitate access.

11. The extinct Edelca, before being nationalized, had 13 helicopters to inspect by air every month all the power lines from Guri to Cuestecita, the last substation of the network located in the Colombian Guajira. Apparently, none is operative.

12. The de-professionalization of the electricity industry has increased in recent years. The specialized engineers chose to leave the country in search of a better future, and some for fear of the constant pressures to which they are subjected by officials of the state security bodies, according to the union members of the electrical industry.

13. In the country there are 19,000 megawatts installed in thermal plants, whose operation could minimize the duration of the blackout. But they are not operational. Until Thursday, only 2,500 megawatts of the total of 19,000 were available, according to engineer José Aguilar.

14. The thermoelectric plants could start with the Black Start feed (rapid response units), but it is clear that none worked, said engineer Aguilar. So Corpoelec has no way of incorporating at least 2,500 megawatts of thermoelectricity into the system.

15. The national blackout affected the heart of the Venezuelan Electric System and shows that Venezuela depends on the Guri as a generator of electricity.

16. The opacity of information by the government of Nicolás Maduro makes it difficult for experts to determine the magnitude of the damage that may have occurred. They indicate that only with the passing of days will it be possible to know what it was that did not allow reconnecting the country.

@raquel.ramirezv