Venezuela is struggling to restore electricity after the nation's power grid collapsed on Thursday, March 7. The massive blackout also resulted in heavy looting and sending the country to its current chaotic state.
In connection with this, China made an offer to help Venezuela to bring back electric supply to the region. The power outage has been described as the worst blackout on record and the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed Donald Trump for the crisis, accusing the POTUS of "cyber sabotage."
According to Reuters, China is deeply concerned about the blackout in Venezuela thus it wants to help in resolving the issue. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Lu Kang, cited reports that a hacking attack caused the country's power grid to go down last week.
"China hopes that the Venezuelan side can discover the reason for this issue as soon as possible and resume normal power supply and social order," the spokesman said during a press conference in Beijing. China is willing to provide help and technical support to restore Venezuela's power grid."
In any case, power has been restored in some large parts of Venezuela and Jorge Rodriguez, the Information Minister, confirmed this detail. However, for areas that are still without power, hospitals barely managed to keep their medical equipment running and food had rotted away since refrigerators are not functioning.
Moreover, looters have ransacked the city for merchandise. They smashed shop windows and forcibly open doors and run off with stolen goods. It was said that over 300 businesses were affected by the pillage.
Empresas Polar, Venezuela's leading food company, revealed that at least four of their warehouses and factories in Maracaibo, Caracas, were looted this week. The company stated that people mostly stole water, carbonated drinks, and pasta noodles.
In a text message sent to CNBC, opposition legislator, Nora Bracho, said, "This has truly been a tragedy. Not having power is already a burden with the temperature at 104 degrees. In addition, there's no potable water and no food."
Maduro is pointing to Washington as responsible for the power outage but experts said it was likely the result of a technical problem with the transmission lines that connect the Guri hydroelectric plant to the national power grid.
Meanwhile, after blaming the U.S. for Venezuela's economic turmoil, he went on to criticize and accuse opposition leader Juan Guaido of being a puppet of Donald Trump's administration. But his critics mocked him for his explanation as to why such a crisis occurred. They insist that the real root of the problem is the rampant corruption and incompetent management of the government officials. As the rift between Venezuela and the U.S. escalates, the U.S. is getting ready to withdraw its remaining diplomats there.
