It could take more than a year to fix one of the largest and most damaged power plants in Puerto Rico after the worst earthquake in more than a century killed one person and triggered an islandwide blackout Tuesday.
The Costa Sur plant in the southern town of Guayanilla, located near the epicenter of the 6.4-magnitude quake, could remain offline “perhaps up to one year,” José Ortiz, the head of Puerto Rico’s power authority, said on a local radio show Thursday morning.
With Costa Sur out of service, Puerto Rico would need to rely on its other power plants to operate almost at full capacity in order to meet demand. Ortiz requested temporary generators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make up for the need.
