More On Blackouts Around The World
Giuseppe Michieli, Italy
French officials confirmed there had been a brief interruption of supply - "probably because of stormy conditions in the zone" - but denied this was the cause of the Italian blackout. The two countries have a long-standing electricity exchange scheme to help deal with peaks in demand on both sides. Power has been slowly returning - mainly to northern areas - though officials have warned it will be several hours before the whole country is supplied. It is an "absolutely exceptional event," said Carlo Andrea Bollino, national grid chairman. White night in the dark In Rome, the power cut struck as thousands of people celebrated the city's first "White Night" - an extravaganza of street events. The failure halted the free underground service provided by the city, and left passengers stranded in underground trains.
Heavy rain had already stopped a number of attractions. "We're not happy at all. Everything was fine - then it all happened at once and now we're angry and wet," a drenched Roman told Reuters news agency. The lights also failed inside the Vatican, although emergency generators are now operating there as they are at Rome's hospitals and key government ministries. Planes are landing and taking off as normal from all Italy's main airports. Emergency services coped fairly well with the situation, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome, although several accidents have been reported as a result of the failure of traffic signals. Italy suffered partial power cuts in June, when the system was strained by heavy use of air conditioners and other electric items. The national grid operator has repeatedly said power demand is growing faster than supply and that imported electricity would not make up for insufficient production in the long term.
Millions without power in Denmark, Sweden
A power outage struck the capital of Denmark and southern Sweden on Tuesday afternoon, leaving nearly 4 million people without electricity, authorities said. Utility officials said the outage, caused by a faulty transmission line between the two countries, was being repaired and most customers would likely have power restored before nightfall. Police did not suspect sabotage or terrorism. Traffic signals and lights in offices, shops and homes went dark just after noon in Copenhagen, a city of 1.8 million people. Hundreds of people emerged from downtown stores and looked around. Some used cell phones to call friends and family. Traffic along the city's main thoroughfare was bumper to bumper. Hospitals used backup generators. Sture Larsson, technical director of the Swedish National Grid, said workers were working to bring power back up. "We're reconnecting the electricity from the national grid to the local and regional network," he said. Trains in Denmark's new driverless subway system came to a stop along the 8.7-mile long route, a Metro spokeswoman told The Associated Press. Passengers were evacuated from two trains without incident. The capital's widespread commuter rail system also came to a halt, police said. Flights to Copenhagen's airport were diverted to Sweden, said spokeswoman Camilla Kjaersgaard. The Oresund bridge and tunnel, which connects Copenhagen to Malmoe, Sweden, was closed to traffic. At the Kronfaagel chicken factory in Kristianstad, Sweden, the power outage meant a temporary reprieve for about 100,000 chickens scheduled to be butchered. "Everything came to a standstill. We cannot produce anything," said Mikael Nilsson, a company spokesman. http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory& c=StoryFT&cid=1059479397973&p=1012571727085
London paralysed by power blackout
By FT reporters Published: August 28 2003 19:19 | Last Updated: August 28 2003 19:47
An electricity blackout across much of London caused travel disruption last night and further undermined confidence in transmission networks. Two weeks after a blackout paralysed much of North America, commuters were stranded in trains and stations during a failure of the ring main in south London at the height of the rush hour. Experts said equipment failure in Wimbledon was the likely cause - probably as a transformer bringing down voltage from the National Grid knocked out supply.Last night National Grid said: "At this stage we are investigating the cause and cannot speculate on what happened." Tim Green of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London said: "This . . . will raise questions about the degree of redundancy in the network. Blackouts in the UK tend to happen in rural areas as a result of storms, but for this to happen there would have to be a major equipment failure and a problem with back-up systems too." The blackout, of less than an hour, caused most problems on the London Underground, which recently closed its alternative power supply system in favour of using the National Grid. The entire network was halted as power cuts to signalling equipment changed signals to red. Staff brought passengers out of trains stopped between stations. There was chaos on the surface rail network, with power cut from southern termini in London, including Victoria, Waterloo, Charing Cross and London Bridge. Network Rail said the "unprecedented" disruption would continue overnight, but normal services would resume on Friday morning. The blackouts also affected mobile-phone networks.
Power Black-Out In Former Soviet Georgia 8/18/03
``We are trying to figure out what's happening,'' said Medeya Kakhadze, an aide to Fuel and Energy Minister Mamuka Nikolaishvili. ``We know only that an emergency shutdown occurred.'' http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6990928%255E1702,00.html
Largest-Ever Blackout Hits Eastern U.S.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59660-2003Aug14?language=printer
The biggest power blackout in history hit steamy U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday, stranding people in subways, closing nuclear power plants in Ohio and New York state and choking streets with workers driven from stifling offices. Officials were looking at a power transmission problem from Canada as the most likely cause, said a spokeswoman for New York Gov. George Pataki. There was no sign of terrorism, officials in New York and Washington agreed. The blackouts robbed power for millions of people in a broad swath of the U.S. Northeast - stretching west to Ohio and Michigan - and in southern Canadian cities, starting shortly after 4 p.m. EDT. In Toronto, Canada's largest city, workers fled their buildings when the power went off. There also were widespread outages in Ottawa, the capital.
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