"Brazil Restores Power After Outage Hits Capital, Ten States"

"Power was restored in Brazil after an outage at a dam providing 20 percent of the country's energy thrust about half of the nation's 190 million people into darkness for at least two hours.

The 14,000-megawatt Itaipu Binacional hydroelectric dam said operations were back to normal at 6 a.m. local time after transmission failed, causing the world's largest dam by output to forcibly shut down for the first time since it went online in 1983. The government is looking into what happened.

Authorities closed Rio de Janeiro's international airport and the subway systems in Sao Paulo and Rio shut after the blackout struck around 10 p.m. local time, affecting 10 of the nation's 26 states and the capital of Brasilia. The outage disrupted telephone services and caused car accidents. TV Globo reported random assaults by thieves on city streets in Rio."

Maria Luiza Rabello and Joshua Goodman report for Bloomberg November 11, 2009.

See Also:

"Blackouts Plague Energy-Rich Venezuela" (New York Times)