The governor of the US territory of Puerto Rico is suggesting the island's public utility sack a sub-contractor responsible for cutting off power for the entire island.

"Today's total power outage in Puerto Rico pinpoints the fact that we are still in a very fragile state," said San Juan Mayor Yulin Cruz, a frequent critic of the Trump administration's half-arsed recovery efforts.  "Moreover, the suffering of the Puerto Rican people seems to be nowhere nearing an end," she said.

Governor Ricardo Rossello tweeted his objections after an excavator operated by D. Grimm, a subcontractor for Cobra Acquisitions, cut through an underground transmission line running between Salinas and Guayama in the southeast.  Most of the island remained blacked out as of Wednesday night.

It was the second time the subcontractor has been involved in a blackout.  Last week, a worker was injured on the hand and foot while operating a machine to clear vegetation from around high tension transmission lines; the machine knocked a tree onto the lines and 870,000 people were left without power. 

It's the latest setback to Puerto Rico coming nearly seven months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.  It took months for most people to get reconnected, and service has been spotty.  The island's utility PREPA says its prioritizing hospitals first, followed by water pumping stations and financial institutions.