Looters Pillage Venezuela Supermarkets As Crippling Blackout Hits Day Five
Looting and violence are rapidly on the rise as Venezuela enters its fifth day without power across most of the country though some reports suggest as much as 30% of power has returned to parts of the capital city Caracas.
The UK Daily Mail has published a series of shocking photographs showing the aftermath of mobs looting supermarkets in Caracas as things turn desperate. The already politically unstable Latin American country was plunged into darkness after last Thursday night all but one of 23 statessuffered mass blackouts. Scene after looting in Caracas, via Reuters
As reports of approaching 20 or more deaths at hospitals attempting to operate with faulty back-up generators came in over the weekend, Reuters noted, “Electricity experts said that outage was most likely due to failures in the transmission system, and that the government lacks the equipment and staff to repair them.”
The scene of looting in Baruta, Caracas earlier today. Security forces arrived in large numbers and eventually gained control of the situation there. #Venezuela
Reuters further described “already-scarce food rotting in shops, homes suffering for lack of water and cell phones without reception.”
And the Daily Mail reported “Pictures reveal that some supermarkets in the capital have been left ransacked by desperate residents as they struggle to find food.”Looting in Caracas, via Reuters
Security personnel have been deployed throughout Caracas to prevent mass looting, though we can imagine that since reports of the water supply being impacted by the outage, people are simply reaching desperation and are attempting any way possible to endure the nightmare circumstances.
Photographs showed in some instances looters being piled into police trucks and vans — this as US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido over the weekend called for nationwide anti-Maduro protests over the failing infrastructure. Most analysts agree the electrical grid mass failure is the result of generally failing infrastructure after years of underinvestment and neglect.
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