San Juan, Puerto Rico — A massive power outage hit nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday morning as the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate New Year's Day, with more than 1.2 million of the island's 1.47 million customers without power, according to Luma Energy, the private company that oversees power transmission and distribution on the island. is

Reuters news agency quoted LUMA as saying it would likely take 24 to 48 hours to restore power to the entire island, “conditions permitting.”

“While the causes of the outage are being investigated, preliminary findings point to underground line failures,” the company said.

Reuters quoted Ivan Baez, a spokesman for Puerto Rico's primary power generator Genera, as saying the grid failure was believed to be due to a problem with a line operated by LUMA, but it also knocked out Genera-owned plants. some other private electric generators.

Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said post on social networks that his administration was in communication with both LUMA and Genera “regarding the massive blackout affecting most of the island due to a critical fault.”

He said work was underway to restore power and that the government “requires answers and solutions from both LUMA and Genera to speed up the restart of generators outside the fault area and to properly inform the public of the measures they have taken.” . to restore service throughout the island.”

In a conversation with the Telemundo network late Monday evening, however, the head of Puerto Rico's electric power department, José Colón. said it could take a few days to fully restore the service.

Puerto Rico continues to struggle with chronic power outages caused by a damaged power grid. destroyed by Hurricane MariaA powerful Category 4 hurricane hit the island in September 2017. The system was already in decline before the storm, given years of lack of maintenance and investment.