Authorities in Colombia’s northern Cordoba department confirmed Sunday night’s riots were caused by an 18 hour power cut and resulted in three deaths.
The power cut took place in the municipality of San Andres de Sotavento and lasted some 18 hours because the Transelca power company could not fix the problem.
Rioting erupted throughout the town as a result and enraged citizens set fire to the mayor’s headquarters, an Electricaribe office as well as the mayor’s own home, reported new station Caracol Monday.
Cordoba’s government secretary, Jairo Lopez Covo, revealed that two of the dead are reported to have been members of the angry mob and they died as a result of suffocation in the mayor’s residence.
Covo declared that the town of some 25 thousand inhabitants awoke on Monday morning to a tense state of calm following the serious rioting of the night before.
