A massive blackout has left thousands without electricity in at least four countries in Central America, following a failure in the region's electrical grid.

"At 11:48 on Monday September 16 there was an emergency in the Central American Electrical System due to a failure in the 230 kW supply line in Honduras," El Salvador's electricity operator EOR said in a statement.

"A full blackout took place in the electrical systems of Nicaragua and Honduras," EOR said, adding that Guatemala and El Salvador only experienced partial outages.

Leonardo Deras, energy generation manager of Hondura's National Electricity Company, said the problem resulted from an overload at a substation on the Caribbean coast.

"When the fault occurred, it was a time of maximum demand, therefore the protection systems [decided] that to prevent damage to the transmission lines it was better to disconnect," Deras told local media.

Source: Al Jazeera