CFE Restores Power After 8-Hour Yucatán Outage

Power has been fully restored across Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Chiapas after an overnight blackout that lasted nearly eight hours, following vandalism to two high-tension transmission lines.

The outage began minutes after 7 p.m. Monday and reached Mérida by about 7:21 p.m., cutting electricity across large parts of the city, its metro area and towns throughout the state. By 8 p.m., the Federal Electricity Commission, known as the CFE, confirmed the cause: two high-tension transmission lines had gone out of service.

Restoration crept forward through the night. By 11:01 p.m., the CFE reported only 12% of service restored and said technical staff were synchronizing generating plants, including ones serving the Riviera Maya and Valladolid, to help recover the lost load. At 12:09 a.m. Tuesday, the utility formally attributed the failure to vandalism against insulators on the transmission lines, with recovery then at 25%.

By 1:21 a.m., restoration had reached 55%. The CFE said hospitals in the region kept power throughout, either through the grid or backup generators. Finally, at 3:08 a.m., the utility announced the supply was fully normalized across all four states.

Even so, users in several municipalities, colonias and residential developments in Yucatán and Quintana Roo continued reporting outages minutes after the CFE’s announcement, according to Diario de Yucatán.

The CFE has not identified who was behind the vandalism or said whether an investigation is underway.

In Mérida, the hours-long outage also knocked out traffic signals, and police organized manual traffic control at intersections through the night. The blackout is the latest in a string of power disruptions to hit the Yucatán Peninsula in recent years, which have ranged from scheduled maintenance cuts to unexplained failures tied to aging infrastructure and summer demand spikes.

Separately, Diario de Yucatán reported the blackout disrupted roughly 7 of every 10 businesses in the state, underscoring the commercial impact of prolonged outages beyond households.

Other regional outlets, including Luces del Siglo, reported the same CFE timeline and statements.

About the Blackout

• When: Outage began around 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31; fully restored by 3:08 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1
• Duration: Nearly 8 hours
• States affected: Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Chiapas
• Cause: Vandalism damaged insulators on two high-tension transmission lines
• Recovery aid: CFE synchronized generating plants serving the Riviera Maya and Valladolid to help restore lost load
• Hospitals: Remained powered via grid or backup generators throughout, CFE said
• Aftermath: Some users still reported outages after the 100% announcement

With reporting from Diario de Yucatán and other regional outlets