Power gradually returning in Venezuela after nationwide outage

Power is gradually returning to Venezuela after a nationwide blackout that authorities blamed on sabotage of the national electrical grid -- the latest crisis to hit the country after a disputed presidential election, Report informs referring to AFP.

Venezuela experiences frequent blackouts, though rarely on such a large scale, which President Nicolas Maduro's government routinely attributes to unproven conspiracies to overthrow him.

Authorities reported the outage across 24 states began shortly before dawn, but by late afternoon AFP correspondents reported power began to return to parts of Caracas, the southwestern state of Tachira and western Merida.

"We are normalizing, regularizing, step by step," Maduro said on television Friday evening, without specifying the extent of the outages or recovery.

"This is an attack full of vengeance, full of hatred, coming from fascist currents relying on political sectors pretending to be the political opposition," he said, alleging US involvement.

Earlier, Communications Minister Freddy Nanez reported "an electrical sabotage... which has affected almost the entire national territory."

Opposition leaders and experts reject the Maduro government's conspiracy claims, instead blaming corruption and a lack of investment and expertise for the outages.