Exodus: 10% of Venezuela has left the country

A nation struggling to get the lights on still:

Well that is a first! Lights in a city in #Venezuela are going crazy on and of and on repeat again. #SinLuz #SinAgua. Some people in Venezuela have now gone 210 hours without lights or either running water. pic.twitter.com/CETnHlNYAT

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis ❁‏ (@sotiridi) April 3, 2019

‘New York Times’ Journalist Describes An ‘Almost Unimaginable’ Crisis In Venezuela

New York Times journalist Nicholas Casey was in Maracaibo, Venezuela, in March when the country was hit by a six-day blackout… “By the fourth day of the power outage, that was when you started to hear shots getting fired in the street,” Casey says. “People were beginning to loot, and the store owners were coming out to defend their stores.”

The U.N. estimates that it’s upwards of 3 million people who have left. Now remember, this is a country of 30 million people. So we’re talking about 10 percent of the population that has gone.

A few weeks with intermittent power and the country is becoming uninhabitable.

When a government tries to print its way out of trouble by giving away “free” money it seems cheap but […]

Power collapses again in Venezuela

What a mess. The power is down again in more than half the country — coming and going. People are desperate for water. Schools, industry and state buildings are closed. The Russians have sent in troops. The US has told them to get out.

It’s easy to take civilization for granted — until you don’t have one.

Urgent: New disruption identified in #Venezuela 40 hours after onset of national power outage; 91% of country now offline reversing partial recovery; incident ongoing #SinLuz #Apagon #27Mar ⬇️https://t.co/7nhWVW9v7a pic.twitter.com/xA8ZRdmagc

— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) March 27, 2019

Update: It has been 55 hours since the onset of nationwide power outages in #Venezuela; 69% of the country remains offline after a new drop in connectivity #SinLuz #Apagon #27Mar ⬇️https://t.co/7nhWVW9v7a pic.twitter.com/7trvLoLqjd

— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) March 28, 2019

 

h/t to Rafe Champion, who links on Catallaxy to my post on how hard it is to restart a grid. And also to Lance’s comment which was so useful I added it as an update to that post and which is now starring on Catallaxy too . In case you missed his comment, and because it’s so apt, here it is again:

Lance predicted […]

Venezuela’s melt down: Blackout day six and the grid struggles to reboot

Venezuela has 31 million people and has had almost no electricity for six days. There are estimates on Twitter (#sinluz) suggesting that about half is back up as I write, but the stories of chaos, death and disaster are surely just starting to come out as communication lines open. The water coming out of taps is black, possibly contaminated with oil (are those shots fake?), the Pepsi plant was stripped bare, see the video. People are desperate: Shop owners are apparently shooting looters. At least one tweeter claims people are eating zoo animals. One baker took his own life after his shop was overrun and everything was stolen. It may not be over yet either — the grid recovered almost as far a few days ago, then collapsed again. Indeed, today explosions have been reported at an electrical substation at La Tiama, as well as other substations. What a debacle, a disaster. Babies in hospitals are being ventilated by hand. Many life support systems are off.

Netblocks tracks connectivity in Venezuala, which seems to be a reasonable proxy for power, and clearly electricity is being rebuilt partially, then collapsing again.

Update: 119 hours after the onset of nationwide […]

Oil giant Venezula, Green giant Tasmania – both running out of electricity

Venezuela Shuts down

In a land where energy makes up 25% of their GDP and most of their exports — it takes some management to run out of electricity. Apparently the land of oil needs some fossil fuel generation.

Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

The government has rationed electricity and water supplies across the country for months and urged citizens to avoid waste as Venezuela endures a prolonged drought that has slashed output at hydroelectric dams.

The socialist solution? Blame the weather:

The ruling socialists have blamed the shortage on the El Nino weather phenomena and “sabotage” by their political foes, while critics cite a lack of maintenance and poor planning.

And hope for help from heaven:

“We’re hoping, God willing, rains will come,” Maduro said in a national address Saturday. “Look, the saving is more than 40 percent when these measures are taken. We’re reaching a difficult place that we’re trying to manage.”

Looks like Venezuela will be doing its bit for the Paris agreement then.

h/t Willie

The Green state — Tasmania — has an electricity crisis and is now running on dirty diesel

Due […]

Roman Warming (was it global?)

Gullible Rudd steps right in it

Rudd let slip a line in his frustration this week that reveals how little he knows about the topic he holds so dear. He has so completely swallowed the PR on climate science, that when poked, he reflexively fires back exaggerated scientific claims that would make even the IPCC blush. In 2007 the IPCC and Gore et al offered Rudd the perfect Election-Wedge-on-a-Platter. They’d primed the audience with propaganda; trained the crowd to recite: Carbon is pollution. It looked like a no-brainer. Yet having based his leadership and campaign on it, it’s obvious he had not done even the most basic of checks (and still apparently hasn’t).

It’s an abject lesson in the importance of doing some homework before rewriting a nation’s economy.

Toga's don't keep you warm

Last week Tony Abbott (the Australian opposition leader) told school children that it was warmer ”at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth”. This banal line set off a flurry of denial and bluster.

Rudd was incredulous in the Parliamentary Hansard record to the opposition members last week:

…how is it that, in the 21st century, you could support this Leader of the […]