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11-11-2009, 04:14 AM | #1 |
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Massive blackouts darken Brazil's 2 largest cities
By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer Bradley Brooks, Associated Press Writer – 5 mins ago
RIO DE JANEIRO – A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest nation for more than two hours late Tuesday, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. All of neighboring Paraguay also lost power, but for only about 20 minutes. The huge Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. He said outages hit nine of the 27 states in a country of more than 190 million people. The cause of the failure had not been determined, but Lobao said strong storms uprooted trees near the Itaipu dam just before it went offline and could be to blame. Rio was the hardest hit city, he said. At 12:37 a.m. Wednesday, the lights in Rio's Copacabana neighborhood flashed back to life, prompting cheers and thunderous car honking. "It's sad to see such a beautiful city with such a precarious infrastructure," said Igor Fernandes, a shirtless 22-year-old law student peddling his bike down a dark Copacabana beach. "This shouldn't happen in a city that is going to host the Olympic Games." Lobao said the hydro plant at the dam itself was working, but there were problems with the power lines that carry electricity across Brazil. Brazil uses almost all of the energy produced by the dam, and Paraguay consumes the rest. In Paraguay, the national energy agency blamed the blackout on a short-circuit at an electrical station near Sao Paulo, saying that failure shut down the entire power grid supplied by Itaipu. All of Paraguay went dark for about 20 minutes, the country's leading newspaper, ABC Color, reported. The blackouts came three days after CBS's "60 Minutes" news program reported that several past Brazilian power outages were caused by hackers. Brazilian officials had played down the report before the latest outages, and Lobao did not mention it. Brazil's official Agencia Brasil news agency said Tuesday's outage started about 10:20 p.m. (1220 GMT), snarling streets in Rio, where traffic that is normally chaotic turned riotous. Cars, taxis and buses zoomed through dark intersections, honking to let their presence known as they zoomed through. Pedestrians scampered across avenues, and tourists scurried back to a handful of luxury beach hotels, the only buildings with light. Flavia Alvin, 37, a shopkeeper in Copacabana, waited with her co-workers for the blackout to end before making the long bus ride home to western Rio. Asked if she was worried about violence or looting, she shook her head and pulled her young daughter closer. "I've heard of problems like rioting in other places with blackouts, but Brazilians are more relaxed," she said. "All I can do is wait here and drink a beer." That was what a crowd was doing at the Eclipse restaurant, a block from Copacabana beach. Drinking quickly warming beer beat sitting in a sweltering apartment, said Paulo Viera, 35, a graphic designer. But he worried about how the outage might look for a city that last month was picked to host the 2016 Olympics and will be the showcase city for soccer's World Cup in 2012. "The image of Brazil, of Rio, is bad enough with all the violence," he said. "We don't need this to happen. I don't know how it could get worse." Subway service was knocked out in both Rio and Sao Paulo, and G1 said Sao Paulo subway users were forced to abandon train cars. Some landing lights on runways at airports in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo went dark, affecting take-offs and landings, according to Globo TV. In the city of Taguatinga near the national capital of Brasilia, a second division Brazilian league soccer game was halted after lights illuminating the field went dark. No power outages happened in Brasilia. Utility companies that provide electricity for Rio and Sao Paulo did not immediately offer explanations for why the power went off or when it would be restored, Agencia Brasil said. Sao Paulo is South America's largest city, with 12 million residents. Rio has 6 million citizens. But the metropolitan area of both cities are much larger. Also affected was Belo Horizonte in central Brazil and the northeastern city of Recife. The Itaipu dam is the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer, supplying 20 percent of Brazil's electricity. China's Three Gorges dam is the largest http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091111/...azil_blackouts Last edited by Dantheman62; 11-11-2009 at 04:22 AM. |
11-11-2009, 08:15 AM | #2 | |
Project Avalon Moderator
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Northeastern Brazil
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Re: Massive blackouts darken Brazil's 2 largest cities
Hi Dantheman62,
I was asleep at the time, so didn't notice anything (Recife is my next door neighbour). I suppose all the Brazilian news channels will be reporting about it today... Best regards, Steve Quote:
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11-11-2009, 09:41 PM | #3 |
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Re: Massive blackouts darken Brazil's 2 largest cities
Brazil's Silva defends power grid after blackout
By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer Bradley Brooks, Associated Press Writer – 20 mins ago RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil's president fended off criticism of his nation's shaky power grid Wednesday as officials investigated a blackout that plunged as many as 60 million people into darkness, prompting concerns about the country's preparedness to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Power went out for more than two hours in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and several other major cities after transmission problems knocked one of the world's biggest hydroelectric dams offline. Airport operations were hindered and subways ground to a halt. A group of muggers took advantage of the darkness to rob people en masse near Rio's Maracana stadium, which will host the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies. But overall, police said, crime did not rise in Rio and fell in Sao Paulo during the outage. All of neighboring Paraguay also went dark, but for less than a half hour. A spokesman at Brazil's Energy Ministry said up to 60 million people — nearly a third of the nation's population — were affected by the blackout. He spoke on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to discuss the matter. The failure affected more people than the worst U.S. blackout on record: an Aug. 14, 2003 outage caused by power line problems in the Midwest that cut electricity to 50 million people in eight states and Canada. The Energy Ministry called an emergency meeting for Wednesday afternoon, but Justice Minister Tarso Genro minimized the impact, saying Brazil has vastly improved its electrical grid since a series of outages in the 1990s. "This is a micro-accident among the extraordinary conquests for energy production for Brazil over the last seven years," Genro said. Energy analysts say Brazil has failed to invest enough in transmission lines as demand for power skyrockets amid an extended boom for Latin America's largest economy. But President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended his government from criticism that it has not done enough to improve the power grid since he took office in 2003, two years after Brazil suffered shortages and rationing under his predecessor. "In seven years, we created 30 percent of all the transmission lines built in the last 130 years," Silva said. Brazilian authorities blamed storms that took down power lines and towers, causing a domino effect that rippled across the region. For the rest of the article... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091111/...azil_blackouts |
11-12-2009, 10:14 PM | #4 |
Avalon Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
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Re: Blackouts darken Brazil's 2 largest cities
Sounds like some "mother ships" down there slurping up the power
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