* Panama's state-owned electricity transmission company, Empresa de Transmisión Eléctrica SA (Etesa), has said that services are back to normal after a massive power outage that hit the country on 20 January leaving traffic lights inoperable, businesses in the dark, and gas stations unable to pump fuel for some six hours. Etesa attributed the incident to a failure in the national integrated system, specifically to a line between Panama City and La Chorrera (capital of Panamá Oeste province). The blackout also affected regions of Nicaragua as well as Costa Rica and Guatemala, leaving them without power and internet. With the exact causes of the blackout still unknown, Etesa’s general manager Gilberto Ferrari has issued a statement pledging to determine the causes of the incident. In March 2017, two massive blackouts similarly took place in Panama which also affected parts of Honduras and Nicaragua, forcing Ferrari’s predecessor, Iván Barría, to quit.
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