Overview
- Early on Monday a blaze broke out inside EDELAP’s Tolosa substation around 2:30–3:00 a.m., producing a transformer explosion and the collapse of transformer columns that cut electricity to wide areas of La Plata and nearby towns.
- Firefighters, Defensa Civil and company crews fought two active fire fronts and had the main flames under control by morning while nearby residents were evacuated and one adjacent party wall collapsed.
- EDELAP activated its emergency plan, deployed more than 15 generators and reconfigured the network, restoring power to about 43,000 users by mid‑afternoon while roughly 22,000 customers remained without service into the evening.
- The company says the cause is under technical investigation with initial hypotheses pointing to a transformer fault or overheating, and local politicians have demanded explanations and possible sanctions if negligence is found.
- The outage disrupted semaphores and long stretches of the Buenos Aires–La Plata highway and raised immediate risks for hospitals, electrodependent patients and local businesses, which EDELAP is prioritizing as crews continue staged repairs.