The Opposition says the islandwide power outage and its impact on National Water Commission (NWC) plants, which left thousands across the country without access to water, highlight the need for the Government to embrace solar technology to power water facilities to help keep the country running during disasters.

The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) has reported that a series of “significant lightning activities” near critical power plants triggered a “cascading effect” that plunged the entire country into darkness for several hours from Friday into early Saturday.

Yesterday, the NWC reported that approximately 65,000 customers remained without water supply as a result of the outage and said it was working towards full restoration.