A severe winter storm is battering Chile's northern mining regions, threatening operations in the country that supplies nearly a quarter of the world's copper.
The Italian utility Enel has responded by increasing its field crews ninefold in the Coquimbo and Atacama regions to manage the crisis.
The weather event raises immediate concerns for power reliability in the energy-intensive mining sector.
Enel's aggressive deployment of personnel signals the severity of the threat to infrastructure that supports major copper producers.
Any prolonged outages could disrupt output from some of the world's largest mines.
Copper markets are sensitive to supply shocks from Chile, which dominates global production.