A "massive failure" in an electrical interconnection system has left Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay completely without power, a utility distributor said Sunday.

Parts of Chile and southern Brazil are experiencing outages as well, said Edesur, the Buenos Aires-based company.

In a statement on its website, Edesur said a "collapse" in its system occurred around 7 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET).

A tweet posted just before 10 a.m. (9 a.m. ET) said the company had begun generating electricity in the Argentine capital and the surrounding area. It said restoring power would take several hours.

The three countries experiencing total blackouts are home to a collective 55 million people.