Brazil's 2 largest cities hit by massive blackouts Tues. 11/10/09

[MuffyBee]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gvYTfvBdDutkp67sdM0KKETo0JpQD9BT1LUO0
Brazil's 2 largest cities hit by massive blackouts

By BRADLEY BROOKS (AP) – 55 minutes ago

RIO DE JANEIRO — A massive power failure swept over Brazil's two largest cities Tuesday night along with other parts of Latin America's largest nation, leaving millions of people in the dark.
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LT APNewsAlert

(AP) – 45 minutes ago

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's energy minister says massive power blackouts caused by failure at huge hydro dam.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSN1033542220091111
Outage leaves millions without power in Brazil
Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:31pm EST
 
 SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters - A major electricity outage left tens of millions of people in Brazil's two largest cities of Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro without power on Tuesday night.

The national electricity grid operator said 17,000 megawatts of energy had been lost, equivalent to the entire consumption of Sao Paulo State.

The electricity operator in the state of Minas Gerais said the outage was caused by a problem with the Itaipu dam which lies on the border between Brazil and Paraguay.

The subway system in Sao Paulo, Brazil's financial capital, was shut down by the outage that occurred just after 10 p.m. (0000 GMT) local time, leaving thousands of people stranded. (Reporting by Stuart Grudgings, editing by Philip Barbara)

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Massive blackout hits Brazil cities: witnesses

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

SAO PAULO — Several major Brazilian cities including the two largest, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, have been plunged into darkness, witnesses said, in a blackout initially attributed to problems at a hydroelectric dam.

The power outage hit at 10:15 pm (0015 GMT Wednesday) and spread to the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, including both their capitals, the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, in the southeast, Mato Grosso do Sul, in the southwest, parts of the central state of Goias, as well as the federal district of Brasilia.

The blackout reportedly affected large swathes of Brazil's major cities in those states as well.

Globo television said National Electric System officials blamed the blackout on a domino effect in the country's power grid from a power failure at the Itaipu hydroelectric plant that Brazil shares with Paraguay.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5AA07M20091111
Blackout raises doubts over Brazil infrastructure
Wed., Nov. 11, 2009

By Eduardo Simoes

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's president denied on Wednesday that underinvestment was to blame for the worst power outage in a decade, which left a huge swath of the country in the dark for more than five hours and raised doubts about the reliability of its energy infrastructure.

The blackout on Tuesday night left tens of millions of people without power across most of the country's wealthy southeastern region, halting subways and snarling traffic in major cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
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