SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — A rare blackout hit the entire Dominican Republic on Tuesday, snarling traffic and paralyzing businesses in the country of nearly 11 million people.

Officials blamed a failure in the grid’s transmission system, although it wasn’t immediately clear what caused it.

Generation units in San Pedro de Macorís and the Quisqueya Power Plant shut down, triggering a cascade of failures at other transmission and generation plants, according to the Dominican Electricity Transmission Company, a decentralized state agency.

It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly power would be restored.

The blackout disrupted mass transit systems including aerial cable cars and the metro in the capital, Santo Domingo, where some people disembarked from the train and began walkin

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