“We were trapped like sardines in the dark”

More than eight million households in Chile were left without energy on Tuesday afternoon after the electric transmission line failed, cutting off the electric supply to much of the country.

In the capital Santiago, the entire underground train system was stopped almost immediately. Thousands of people had to be evacuated and the stations were immersed in darkness.

“We were like sardines in the dark,” one passenger described the moment when their underground train stopped.

Many of those who were in elevators inside the stations when the power was cut, they had to be released from firefighters.

A woman of the 70s was trapped in an elevator between two floors in a building in Santiago.

She told the local media that she was “kicking the door” of the elevator to draw attention to her difficult position and her screams eventually signal the porter.

“I’m brave, I told myself” I will not die here, “she said.

Videos shared on social media have also shown that subway passengers use the flashlights on their mobile phones to find a way out of the dark stations.

According to the Metro de Santiago, the evacuation of the underground is completed 90 minutes after a reduction in the power supply – but the interruption caused by the interruption, carried out many more hours.

The 150 additional buses located for ferry passengers were not almost enough to compensate for the suspension of the subway, which transported an average of 2.3 million passengers every day.

Long tails were formed at bus stops, where passengers were angry when the packed buses did not stop.

Their number soon swells with workers sent home early, as most offices were paralyzed by the lack of electricity.

“The power came out at 3:00 pm, so we had no power at all,” said a store in Santiago. “People started to close about 16 or 17 hours.”

Traffic in the capital was further disturbed by the failure of several traffic lights.

A truck collided with a car in a crossing, where traffic lights were out, and there were reports of at least another accident caused by the lack of functioning traffic lights.

After the grid deteriorated, thousands of people were forced to go to their destinations at summer temperatures of about 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit).

One of them, Sharon Ortiz, a 28-year-old waitress, said the public transport system had collapsed.

“I have to work two hours late, I stayed in the middle of Kostaner (shopping center) and from there I had to go,” she said.

Some people get on lifts on the back of trucks.

The restaurants and cafes were among the enterprises affected by the reduction of electricity.

Some remained open to offer those who walk home for a break, but many closed because cash machines, cardboard machines and refrigerators do not work.

Some of the most dramatic scenes unfolded in Fantasland, an amusement park in Santiago, where at least a dozen people were stuck on top of a train.

The Fantasilandia manager said that while the park had reserve generators, the attractions would not restart immediately for security reasons.

Hospitals relied on emergency power generators.