Major power failures hit Brazil

Street and traffic lights in Rio were affected by the outage

Brazil's two largest cities - Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo - suffered widespread blackouts due to a problem at the Itaipu dam on Paraguay border.

All of Paraguay was also left in darkness, but only for 15 minutes, while several other Brazilian cities were affected for more than four hours.

The power system lost 17,000 megawatts after the massive dam went offline, possibly because of a storm.

Extra police were put on the streets to prevent a surge in crime.

The director of the dam said that it lost its entire hydroelectric output, but power was gradually being restored.

In Brazil's major cities, the underground railway systems in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo shut down, after the power cuts hit soon after 2200 (0000GMT), leaving many passengers stranded.

Thousands of rail passengers had to walk down underground tracks to reach stations.

No traffic lights or street lights were working in Rio, the hardest hit city, and Sao Paulo, forcing traffic to stop or slow to a crawl.

Crime concerns

Extra police had been ordered onto Rio's streets to prevent any opportunistic crime, reports said.

The BBC's correspondent in Sao Paulo, Gary Duffy, said the power outage happened at a time when millions would have been watching the country's popular soap opera on TV.

There was absolute chaos on the streets of Sao Paulo, as baffled motorists stopped to ask what had happened.

Radio programmes broadcast appeals for people to drive safely.

Neighbourhood blackouts are common in the city of 19 million, but the scale of this outage was remarkable, our correspondent added.

The power failure also affected the southeastern states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, parts of the central state of Goias, and the federal district of Brasilia, although the capital itself was unaffected.

In all, nine of Brazil's 27 states were affected.

The Itaipu dam provides Brazil with 20% of its electricity.

Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said a large storm in the area of the dam might have caused the power failure.

"The exact cause still isn't known, but we suspect that atmospheric problems, an intense storm, may have contributed to or caused the transmission lines to Itaipu to shut down," he said.

In Paraguay, which relies on the Itaipu dam for 90% of its electricity, the entire country went black for 15 minutes.

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Commentary

This is something we all should have seen coming. I learned about the dam a long time ago and saw a documentary about it's construction.

It never occurred to me, "Gee, what would happen if the dam went through technical difficulties and stopped working". Well Ladies and Gents, we have our answer with this article. Again I think this problem went over a lot of peoples heads even though it was staring us right in the face :P