SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Electrical lines from a toppled utility pole killed four horses in central Puerto Rico on Thursday in an incident that also saw power knocked out to the area, underlining the deteriorating state of the U.S. territory’s power grid.
There was no word immediately as to what had caused the pole in the mountain town of Utuado to fall. Police said in a statement that officials and firefighters were at the scene.
It was the latest incident affecting Puerto Rico’s crumbling power grid, which is still being rebuilt after Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm in September 2017.
Chronic outages still regularly strike the island as the government pledges to end the contract of Luma, a private company that oversees the transmission and distribution of power on the island.
In March 2018, a utility pole fell in the central mountain town of Las Marías and killed a couple in their 60s who were driving through the town, sparking outrage over the state of infrastructure six months after the hurricane.
