Politics Massive blackout cripples Italy

[Sophie]

Thousands of Romans were left in the dark - and in the rain

Italy has been hit by a massive power cut - and many parts remain without electricity hours after the unprecedented blackout.
Only the island of Sardinia escaped the power cut, which struck at about 0330 (0130GMT) on Sunday morning.
About 110 trains were reported to have been brought to a standstill across the country - trapping thousands of people.
It is the latest in a series of major blackouts to affect national power grids - north-east United States and Canada were hit last month, and Denmark and southern Sweden on Tuesday.
A power cut left London's underground transport in chaos last month.
The Italian national grid authority blamed the blackout on a malfunction of two major supply lines from France.
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.

 

[Alias_Girl_624]

OMG!! that's so awful! it's kinda like the massive power out that went all the way from NY Michigan a few weeks ago, here in the states.

 

[Sophie]

Italians probe massive blackout

Italian prosecutors have launched an inquiry after the worst blackout in the country's history left more than 50 million people without power.
Several areas in Italy were waiting for supplies to be restored early on Monday.
As debate raged over what went wrong, the Rome prosecutor's office said its inquiry would try to establish who was responsible.
Officials were warning of "programmed" cuts on Monday to avoid overloads.
"We are planning precautionary cuts to reduce demand so that it meets the availability (of power)," said Andrea Bollino, chairman of the national grid company GRTN.
Sunday's power loss was the latest in a series of major blackouts to affect national power grids. Last month a vast section of the United States and Canada lost power, hitting 50 million people.
The incident was followed two weeks later by one in the UK. Last week the Danish capital, Copenhagen, and southern Sweden were hit.
The blackout appears to have been triggered by a minor accident on a power line in neighbouring Switzerland, causing a domino effect in French lines which affected Italy. Parts of the Swiss city of Geneva were also blacked out.
On Monday Switzerland and France were blaming Italy for having failed to take action that would have limited the scale of the problem, while Italy said France was at fault.
Mr Bollino also faced criticism for having reassured the Italian public after the US blackout that the problem could not happen there.
At least five people are reported to have died in accidents during the blackout. An estimated 30,000 were trapped on trains.
Only the island of Sardinia escaped the blackout, which struck at about 0330 (0130GMT) on Sunday morning.

High imports

Areas still feeling the effects on Monday included Enna and Caltanissetta on Sicily, and Puglia in the south-east.
The power failure in Italy has highlighted the country's dependence on energy imports.
A spokesman for Enel, the Italian utility company, said the country imported up to 17% of its power, compared with a Europe-wide average of 2%.
He said that poor organisation in the Italian grid made the problem worse.
Environmental opposition to building new power plants means that Italy has become more and more dependent on power imports.
Industry Minister Antonio Marzano called for a backing for a bill to increase power output by 12,000MW, a quarter of the current capacity.
The head of the power company echoed his call.
"I would like my fellow citizens to know that we must build new plants and networks on our territory or the situation will remain the same," said Enel chief executive Paolo Scaroni.
A Swiss power company said the problem began when a tree touched a 380,000 volt transmission line near the town of Brunnen at 0300 (0100GMT).
Atel, a Swiss power supply company, said that two French transmission lines also failed shortly afterwards.
"After that, all connections to Italy dropped out," said an Atel spokesman.
Three elderly women died in separate incidents when they fell downstairs in the dark, a fourth woman died of burns after a candle set her clothes ablaze, and one woman died in a road accident caused by the lack of traffic lights.
At the Vatican, emergency generators were started up to provide power to amplify Pope John Paul II's announcement of a list of new cardinals.

 

[Azhria Lilu]

I remember when I was in Italy the taxi cab drivers were on strike

(not good when trying to get around)

Anyways, i'm sorry to hear the problem is actually a global one