Days After Trump Proposes Buying Greenland, Most of the Population Loses Electrical Power in Outage in Severe Cold Weather

6 am PST on Sunday 12/28/24: Latest update from the national power company in #Greenland 🇬🇱

“Notice to citizens of Nuuk, Nuussuaq and Qinngorput. Nukissiorfiit can now say that the whole town is once again supplied with electricity, water and heat. It may happen that there are minor power outages in parts of the city. We will announce more when we know more about the transmission line from the hydro power station. If anyone should still experience problems with the supply of electricity, they can call Nukissiorfiit's electricity service at 54 15 22. State your address and electricity number.”

A few days ago, US President Elect Donald Trump reiterated that he wanted the US to purchase Greenland from Denmark. Saturday morning, the power went out in Nuuk, the Greenland power. Coincidence? We think not.

The local power company apologized and said they were working on teh problem. But the lights were still out in the capital city of 22,000 residents, and beyond. The island has just 57,000 inhabitants, 80% of them inuit, and most of them live in the capital and its suburbs.

Days After Trump Proposes Buying Greenland, Most of the Population Loses Electrical Power in Outage

Orla Joelson lives in Nuuk and posted the following to Twitter: "Until the Greenland national power company, Nukissiorfiit, finds the fault in hydropower station (which is located about 60 kilometers south of Nuuk, and have 2 employees all year) -citizens are being told to be frugal and not use washing machines, dishwashers, and other large appliances. The backup generators can’t handle all the city. Now it’s time to sleep!. I’ll give more information tomorrow. Thanks for your sympathy, it’s warm our heart."

It is the dead of winter and the daytime temperature in Nuuk is about -27F. The cause of the outage appears to be a breach on the transmission cable somewhere between the power plant and Nuuk.

Statement from the power company: "As of 08:18 PM on December 28, 2024 PST, Nuuk, Greenland, is currently dealing with a significant power outage. According to recent updates, the city has been without power for several hours, with restoration efforts underway. The outage began around 9:45 AM local time, and although emergency generators have been activated, full restoration is expected to take between 3 to 5 hours from the time of the last update. Temperatures in Nuuk have been reported to be extremely low, below -27°F, which adds urgency to the situation. The cause of the outage appears to be related to issues with the transmission line from the hydroelectric power plant located about 65 kilometers from Nuuk. Efforts are ongoing to identify and fix the fault."

The world's largest island, Greenland is located between Iceland and the Canadian Arctic Archapelago. Norsemen settled it in the 10th century, hundreds of years before Columbus "discovered" America. But the Scraelings or Inuit forced them to leave the island, which is 93% covered by ice sheets.