NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – Government and the Opposition in the Bahamas have traded blame over Thursday’s islandwide power outage, which the government said was due to a suspected underground cable fault and an explosion at the Blue Hill Power Station.

Prime Minister Philip Davis, who toured the Blue Hill Power Station with officials from the Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), apologised to the country, saying, “We understand how disruptive and frustrating these outages are, especially in this heat,” adding that the islandwide blackout was the result of “acts beyond our control”.

He said incidents like these remind the population of the state of BPL, adding, “We inherited a very archaic and, in most cases, end-of-life system.