As of Wednesday, six million people in southwest Colombia were without natural gas owing to what authorities are calling a thermal anomaly that may have affected pipes.
There has been a total restriction on the natural gas service in the western departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca since lunchtime.
According to the mines ministry, the problem also affects five other departments in the country’s center and southwest.
According to the Transportadora de Gas Internacional, the anomaly that shut down the gas pipelines could be the product of an underground fire in the area near a volcano and it could take a week to restore service.
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The fuel is used by two-thirds of Colombia’s 50 million inhabitants for cooking and other purposes.
“This brings… a crisis that we have not seen in a long time”, Jorge Ivan Ospina, the mayor of Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, told the media.
More than 1.3 million people are affected.
According to photographs shared on social media, some residents began cooking with firewood, while others waited in lengthy queues to purchase electric burners. Several gas-powered public transport vehicles have also ceased working.
