Electrical failure leaves Argentina, Uruguay in the dark

A massive blackout swept through all of Argentina and Uruguay on Sunday morning after an unexplained electrical failure in the Argentina network knocked out the interconnected system. Parts of Paraguay were also affected, BBC reports, while Al Jazeera writes that the outage also reportedly extends to parts of Brazil and Chile.

Argentine media reports that the country's trains have been halted. "Never has anything like this happened before," Alejandra Martinez, a spokesperson for electricity company Edesur Argentina, said.

Edesur said power has been restored to 75,000 clients in parts of Buenos Aires and that two of the capital's airports were operating on generators. Argentina's energy secretary, Gustavo Lopetegui, also said power was being restored in some parts of the country but that the process could take several hours.

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The outage occurred as people in several parts of Argentina were making their way to voting polls for local elections.

The combined population of Argentina and Uruguay is about 48 million people.