UPDATE 2 - Massive Blackout Darkens Argentina, Uruguay - Utility Firm

BUENOS AIRES (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2019) A massive power outage plunged Argentina and Uruguay into darkness on Sunday morning, the Buenos Aires-based utility company, Edesur, said.

"A massive failure in the electrical interconnection system has left Argentina and Uruguay without power. We will provide more information," the power distributor tweeted.

Argentina has been without power for an hour, a Sputnik correspondent in Buenos Aires confirmed, but operations at the capital's Ezeiza and Aeroparque airports are running smoothly.

"The blackout has affected some unimportant airport services but there has been no impact on arrivals and departures," a spokesperson for airport authority Aeropuertas Argentina told Sputnik.

Uruguay's state power company UTE said lights went out at around 7 a.

m. local time (10:00 GMT). Power supply has already been restored to some coastal cities, it added.

UTE added that the blackout happened as a result of technical malfunction in Argentina's power grid.

"At 7:06 a.m., a technical malfunction occurred in Argentina's power grid ... and caused a blackout on the entire territory of the country and several provinces in its neighboring country [Uruguay]," the company tweeted.

According to Daniel Russo, the undersecretary of civil protection of Argentina's Security Ministry, as cited by Argentine TN news outlet, the cause of the malfunction has not been determined yet.

Meanwhile, power has started to be restored in Buenos Aires and some Argentine provinces, Edesur said, with at least 34,000 clients getting their power supply back.