Venezuela restoring power after blackout: minister

Power supplies are returning to Venezuela following a fresh blackout, electricity minister Fredy Brito said this evening.

Brito confirmed through Twitter that the blackout hit at 4:45pm local time today.

"We are in the process of reconnection to restore service... the labor force is dedicated to restoring the system."

Venezuela suffered a string of catastrophic blackouts in March and early April. State-owned utility Corpoelec has since been patching up the grid that is still subject the frequent outages across the country.

This afternoon´s blackout covered most of Venezuela's 23 states.

Communications vice-president Jorge Rodriguez blamed the blackout on an "electromagnetic attack", echoing previous government statements attributing outages to actions directed from abroad.

Corpoelec officials privately blame years of under-investment, mismanagement and corruption for the broken state of the grid.

President Nicolas Maduro's government is subject to US sanctions aimed at forcing him out of office in favor of the opposition, led by National Assembly speaker and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido.

The government "tried to conceal the tragedy with rationing across the country, but the failure is evident: they destroyed the electric system and have no answers," Guaido said on Twitter tonight.