‘We are desperate’: Venezuela’s power cuts fuel growing public anger

The hum of the kidney dialysis machine that Onasis Munoz is connected to suddenly stops. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker out, and his room at a clinic in Valencia, Venezuela, is plunged into darkness. It is not the first time a power cut has interrupted one of the three weekly sessions Munoz needs to do the work his failing kidneys can no longer do, filtering waste and excess fluid from his blood. For years, electricity would go out every couple of days across parts of Venezuela's Carabobo state. But in recent months, Munoz said, the outages have grown to be daily, lasting around seven hours. The clinic's emergency batteries have since been depleted, and its backup generator no longer works.