The most incompetent government in the world? Or sabotage? Or yes to all?

Venezuela's power went out five days ago and is still out.

No End in Sight to Venezuela’s Blackout, Experts Warn

Sporadic looting and spontaneous protests. Desperate patients begging doctors to be kept alive. 

Residents bracing for wider attacks on markets and restaurants after the sun goes down.

Sunday was the fourth day since Venezuela’s power system went down, plunging most of the country, including Caracas, the capital, into sporadic darkness and dampening hopes of imminent resolution to a devastating blackout that has brought the country to the verge of social implosion.

“We’re going to arrive at a moment when we’re going to eat each other,” said Zuly González, 40, a resident of Caracas’s Chacao neighborhood.

The blackout is the latest crisis to befall a country in seemingly perpetual crisis. 

Venezuela has been devastated for years by hyperinflation and a failing economy that has led millions to flee. 

But the country has been further torn since January, when opposition political leaders refused to acknowledge as legitimate the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro.

. . . .

The government said the blackout was caused by an unspecified fault at Guri, which provides 80 percent of the country’s electricity. 

Mr. Maduro and his ministers have insisted the blackout is the result of sabotage and cyberattacks organized by the United States and the opposition, without providing any evidence.

. . . .

Energy experts, Venezuelan power sector contractors and current and former Corpoelec employees have dismissed accusations of sabotage, saying the blackout was the result of years of underinvestment, corruption and brain drain.

The San Geronimo B substation connects eight out of Venezuela’s 10 largest cities to the Guri hydropower plant via one of the longest high-voltage lines in the world.

When visited on Sunday, the substation’s usual buzz of high-voltage cross currents had been replaced by total silence.