Puerto Rico is slowly recovering from an island-wide blackout

The island-wide power outage began on Wednesday evening. Hundreds of thousands of people are still without electricity in the territory.

The power plant had a failed circuit breaker. According to The New York Times, the plant produces more electricity than any other facility on the island. Luma, a private Canadian-American entity that took over management of the power grid from a public utility last year, said there was extensive damage to the plant. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire.

According to poweroutage.us, more than 429,000 customers were without power as of 1:45PM Eastern time on Friday. Luma could not give an estimate on how long it would take to restore power.

Public school service was canceled on Friday, but critical facilities are up and running. Around 10 percent of water and sewer customers did not have water on Thursday.

Luma said it would make the island less prone to power cuts. According to reports, the grid has been without power longer than when the public utility was in charge.

There was a power outage after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Some people had to wait for more than a year before electricity was restored, a situation that highlighted the precarious condition of the territory's power grid.