CARACAS - Venezuela decreed a 24-hour holiday Tuesday to cope with a new near-nationwide blackout that the government alleged was caused by an "attack" targeting its main hydroelectric plant. There were lines for the very few buses running, but subway stations were closed, the underground trains stalled on their tracks. - A degraded grid -In the last blackout, President Nicolas Maduro also had said the Guri plant was targeted. In that March 7-14 outage, more than a dozen patients in hospitals died, production slowed in the vital oil sector and water supplies were interrupted, forcing citizens to turn to sewage outflows and polluted water sources. Washington hit back, warning that it would not "stand idly by as Russia exacerbates tensions in Venezuela."

Source: Bangkok Post March 26, 2019 15:11 UTC