Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness early Tuesday morning when nearly the entire island was without power.

Luma Energy, the island’s main electricity distributor, said the cause of the outage was under investigation, but initial findings indicated a fault in underground lines. Full restoration of service may take 24-48 hours, The company stated on X day.

According to the New York Times, only 13% of the island’s 1.4 million customers had power as of 10:00 local time (14:00 GMT).

Luma said power had been restored to some areas and the San Juan City Hospital an hour later.

The New Year’s Eve power outages prompted renewed calls from elected officials and residents to address ongoing power problems in the unincorporated U.S. territory that have persisted since Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Incoming Puerto Rico Governor Jennifer González-Colon, Puerto Rico’s current representative in the U.S. Congress, writes in X that the island cannot continue to endure an energy system that regularly fails its citizens.

She said power outages continue to impact Puerto Rico’s economy and quality of life.

The current governor, Pedro Pierluisi, took to Facebook to seek answers and solutions from the two major power companies, Luma and Genera.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have been affected by power outages this year. Blackouts in June left about 350,000 customers without power as temperatures rose, and more than 700,000 customers were without power after Hurricane Ernesto in August.

When Puerto Ricans woke up again without power, they expressed their frustration to U.S. media.

“They are part of my daily life,” Enid Núñez, 49, told The Associated Press of the outages.

Puerto Rico’s power grid was strained even before Hurricane Maria devastated the island. U.S. government funding has helped shore up the power grid, facilitate other natural disaster recovery projects and make other important infrastructure improvements.

But according to a February 2024 report, implementation has not yet been completed due to various factors, such as construction start-up issues and requests from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to authorize the use of some of the funds. Report From the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

“It’s inexcusable that the grid has still not recovered from the devastation of Hurricane Maria,” New York City’s Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine wrote on X .

New York City is home to the largest Puerto Rican community in the continental United States.

“That’s 3.5 million U.S. citizens,” he wrote. “We owe them so much.”