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An island-wide blackout has hit Puerto Rico

<p>The entire island of Puerto Rico lost power again.</p><p>Officials from the island's electricity provider are blaming a defect in a power line. They say it could take up to 36 hours to fix.</p><p>Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Maria in September. Right before this major outage, about 40,000 people still didn't have electricity.</p><p><b>SEE MORE: <a href="https://www.newsy.com/stories/thousands-of-puerto-ricans-lose-power-because-of-a-tree/">Thousands Of Puerto Ricans Lose Power — Because Of A Tree</a></b></p><p>This is also the second major outage in less than a week. Crews were already trying to restore power for 870,000 people after a tree fell on a major power line last week.</p><hr><b>Trending stories at <a href="http://www.newsy.com">Newsy.com</a></b><ul class="inline-related-links"><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/office-diversity-quotas-well-intended-but-legally-tricky/">Diversity Quotas In The Office: Well-Intended But Legally Tricky</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/fox-news-says-it-will-support-sean-hannity-after-cohen-news/">Fox News Says It Will Support Sean Hannity After Cohen Revelation</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/bump-stock-maker-to-shut-down-website/">The Inventor Of Bump Stocks Will Soon Stop Taking Orders</a></li></ul>
Posted at 12:00 PM, Apr 18, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-18 13:29:43-04

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An island-wide blackout has hit Puerto Rico, which is struggling with an increasingly unstable power grid nearly seven months after Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory.

Electric Power Authority spokeswoman Yohari Molina tells The Associated Press that crews are investigating the cause. Officials said Wednesday it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power.

It's the first time since Category 4 storm hit on Sept. 20 that Puerto Rico has experienced a full island-wide blackout.

Some 40,000 power customers were still without normal electricity service as a result of the hurricane.

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