Venezuela Blackout Devastates The Country's Second Largest City

An employee cleans a store inside a shopping mall after looting in Maracaibo, March 12, 2019. Photograph: Issac Urrutia/Reuters

The Guardian: Venezuela blackout devastates country's second city as world focuses on Caracas

The sick must provide their own medical supplies as havoc grips Maracaibo, but shelves in the looted shops are bare

The air in the crowded emergency ward was already thick with the rusty smell of dried blood when the door burst open and two men barged in, screaming for help.

Between them, they carried a third man: barefoot, bare-chested – and bleeding freely from a deep wound which had nearly severed his right arm.

Two doctors ran over to help; one examined the wounded man while the other told his friends to go and find bottled water and sutures; there were none left in the hospital.

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WNU Editor: The Venezuelan government is now saying that power has been restored .... Power has finally been restored to Venezuela, minister says (CNN). My one contact in Caracas was able to send me a message to me yesterday after being incommunicado for 3 weeks, and he is telling me another story. There are rolling blackouts in Caracas, and outside of Caracas the information that he is receiving from family is that the electricity is unreliable even if it does come on. Water supplies are also unreliable, and in Caracas law enforcement has been completely overwhelmed by the crime and looting that has engulfed the city in the past week. He is surprised that martial law has not been declared.

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