Power was nearly fully restored in Ecuador, hours after a nationwide electricity outage left the country of about 18 million in the dark, including the capital’s subway system. Public works minister Roberto Luque said in a post on X that 95% of service had been restored by late Wednesday afternoon. “What happened today is just more proof of the energy crisis we’re dealing with,” he said, ticking off recent problems caused by insufficient power generation that has led to unscheduled service cuts. Luque, who also serves as acting energy minister, stressed that Wednesday’s outage was due to a lack of investment in transmission that could have been avoided. Luque had earlier in the day pinned the blame on a transmission line failure that caused “a cascade disconnection.” In April, president Daniel Noboa declared an energy emergency and announced planned electricity cuts. Emilia Cevallos, a waitress in a restaurant north of the capital, Quito, said the blackout was surprising. “We thought it was only in this sector, but when we left we realised that while some stores had connected generators, the majority did not have electricity,” she said. “The traffic lights were not working either.” Wednesday’s outage caused dangerous driving conditions for scores of motorists, as traffic lights ceased working. Operations of Quito’s subway were also interrupted for several hours. While the South American country has struggled with a drought affecting hydroelectricity power generation, heavy rains over the weekend forced authorities to take three hydroelectric plants offline.