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Major outage forces Puerto Rico to shutter schools, offices

Puerto Rico Bankrupcy
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — More than a million customers in Puerto Rico remain without electricity after a fire broke out at a main power plant.

An island-wide blackout forced the U.S. territory to cancel classes and shutter government offices Thursday.

Wednesday night's outage also left some 160,000 customers without water.

The fire at the plant is out, according to the Bureau of Puerto Rico Fire Departments. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

A private company that took over transmission and distribution from Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority last year said the blackout could have been caused by a circuit breaker failure at the Costa Sur generation plant.

It is one of four main plants on the island.