A blackout hit the whole of Ecuador on Wednesday, leaving the nation of 18 million without power. Energy Minister Roberto Luque blamed the massive outage on a incident with a transmission line in southern Ecuador which triggered a “cascading disconnection.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The blackout was the first of its kind in 20 years and “shows how fragile our system is, and reflects the energy crisis we’re experiencing,” Luque told reporters in Guayaquil.