Argentina, Uruguay hit by power outage

A massive failure in the electrical grid today left Argentina and Uruguay without power.

"A collapse in the Argentine Interconnection System produced a massive electric energy cut in the entire country that also affected Uruguay," Argentina's energy secretariat said.

The failure began at 6:07am ET. The cause of the outage remains unclear.

Recovery efforts have already begun in northern Patagonian provinces, western Argentina and the northwestern end of the country, the energy secretariat said, adding that getting the whole system back on line "could take a few hours."

Uruguay's state-owned utility UTE said on Twitter that recovery efforts had already begun, and several cities already had power an hour and a half after the initial outage.