The noise from the kidney dialysis machine that Onassis Muñoz was connected to suddenly stopped. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, plunging his room at his clinic in Valencia, Venezuela, into darkness.
This is not the first time that one of Munoz’s three weekly sessions has been interrupted by a power outage, as he has to filter waste and excess water from his blood, a job his failing kidneys can no longer do.
For years, some areas of Venezuela’s Carabobo state have experienced power outages every few days.
But in recent months, Munoz said, power outages have become daily, lasting about seven hours. Then the clinic’s emergency batteries died and the backup generators stopped working.
He explained that frequent power outages have disrupted treatment. As a result, his health deteriorated.
“I go home as exhausted as if I had run a marathon,” said the 34-year-old.
But even there, there is often no electricity, and the past few weeks have been sweltering. “I can’t even turn on the air conditioner. I can’t rest because of the heat and the mosquitoes. There’s no help,” Muñoz said.
Across Venezuela, prolonged power outages have left local residents reeling, leaving households, businesses and essential services with unreliable power supplies.
Some of the cuts are intentional, as interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s government is rationing electricity.
The resulting discontent has spilled onto the streets, with demonstrators holding up “cacerolazos,” a traditional form of protest by banging pots and pans.
Some have gone as far as blocking roads and setting tires on fire. The power crisis has also raised concerns about how the government is managing its vast oil supplies, a key source of income for the country.
“We are in despair,” said Patricia Cueva, a lawyer in Maracaibo, the capital of the oil-rich Zulia state. “We cannot understand how a country so rich in resources could be effectively left in the dark.”
“We can’t rest. We can’t work. Our children cry.”
