New nationwide power outage detected across Venezuela

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The NetBlocks internet observatory has identified a new widespread power outage across Venezuela starting shortly after 5:00 PM UTC (1:00 PM VET) Monday 25 March 2019, cover most states and covering capital Caracas, sending 57% of the country’s telecommunications infrastructure offline.

Venezuela has been recovering from a series of outages of unprecedented magnitude since 7 March knocked out Venezuela’s internet connectivity utilities offline. The new disruption is on a similar scale to the first two disruptions earlier in the month.

NetBlocks diffscans, which map the entire IP address space of a country in real time, show internet outages corresponding to power cuts in the region.

Internet outages caused by electricity grid disruptions have a distinct network pattern used by NetBlocks to determine and attribute the root cause of an outage, a process known as attribution which follows detection and classification stages.

Update: A Second nationwide power outage detected in Venezuela. Real-time network data shows 88% of the country now offline at levels approaching the severity of the incident on 7 March when just 2% remained online:

Update: Impact has been assessed across 18 states of Venezuela following the new national power outage, with severe-rated states below identified as having under 10% connectivity as compared to the period prior to the disruption:

┌─state──────────────────────┬─incident_impact─┬─incident_auto_classification─┐
│ Mérida, VE                 │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Táchira, VE                │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Estado Trujillo, VE        │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Barinas, VE                │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Miranda, VE                │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Dependencias Federales, VE │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Apure, VE                  │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Zulia, VE                  │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Aragua, VE                 │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Lara, VE                   │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Portuguesa, VE             │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Distrito Federal, VE       │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Guárico, VE                │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Yaracuy, VE                │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Cojedes, VE                │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Amazonas, VE               │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Falcón, VE                 │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Carabobo, VE               │ SEVERE          │ power outage                 │
│ Vargas, VE                 │ HIGH            │ power outage                 │
│ Nueva Esparta, VE          │ HIGH            │ power outage                 │
│ Sucre, VE                  │ MEDIUM          │ power outage                 │
│ Anzoátegui, VE             │ MEDIUM          │ power outage                 │
└────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘

 

Update: Venezuela has now been largely disconnected for 24 hours following the second national power blackout. Current network data shows 85% of the country offline with little evidence of recovery as of 5:00 PM UTC 26 March 2019:

Update: 9:40 AM UTC, 27 March 2019: A new disruption has been identified in Venezuela 40 hours after onset of a major national power outage. 91% of the country is now offline reversing an earlier partial recovery:

Update: 12:10 AM UTC, 28 March 2019: 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:

Methodology

NetBlocks diffscans, which map the IP address space of a country in real time, show internet connectivity levels and corresponding outages. Purposeful internet outages may have a distinct network pattern used by NetBlocks to determine and attribute the root cause of an outage, a process known as attribution which follows detection and classification stages.

NetBlocks is an internet monitor working at the intersection of digital rights, cyber-security and internet governance. Independent and non-partisan, NetBlocks strives to deliver a fair and inclusive digital future for all.

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