PANAMA’S  power blackout on Friday March 16 cost the local economy some $1.3 million an hour according to The Chamber of Commerce and Industries.

The Chamber says  smaller companies are the most harmed by these types of incidents, because they do not have emergency generators.

The projection of the business group came after the blackout y in several areas of Panama and Colón due to three explosions in the substations of the electricity transmission company Etesa.

The Public Services Authority announced Saturday that it will begin an investigation of the outage,  which impacted thousands of users.

Scores of restaurants were forced to close, and were unable to process payments for clients, and small stores closed their doors as police alerts were issued, that gangs could take advantage of the power outage that started early evening and lasted well into the night  in most areas.