Blackout in Panama puts about 1.5 million people in the dark

PANAMA CITY – A power outage in Panama has plunged about 1.5 million people into darkness.

Panama’s Electrical Transmission Company reports that the blackout was caused by a series of transformer explosions at a generation and distribution station.

The failure knocked out metro service in Panama City. The Panama Canal has its own power-generation capacity, so its operations were not affected.

The company says it is working to repair the problem, and the lights have started coming back on in parts of the capital after being out for over an hour Friday night.

The blackout affected Panama City and the province of Colon, on the country’s Caribbean coast.