Power Failure In Itaipu Dam Plunges Brazil Into Darkness
November 11th, 2009 - 7:55 pm ICT by GDBy Madhuri Dey
Rio De Janeiro, Nov. 11, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Itaipu Dam in Brazil suddenly went off on Tuesday, plunging most of Brazil and parts of Paraguay in absolute darkness. The dam is alone responsible for producing electricity for large parts of Brazil and the neighboring state of Paraguay. It is the largest dam in the area and one of the largest in the world. The failure in the machinery of the dam resulted in the power cut that lasted for over two hours in two of the largest cities of Brazil: Rio De Janeiro and Sau Paulo. The authorities reported that the blackout had caused almost 17,000 megawatts of electricity to be cut off, the impact of which was felt across ten states of Brazil.
The dam is situated on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. It is the world’s second largest producer of hydro-electricity. It supplies 20% of the total electricity of Brazil. The country’s electric supply is largely dependent on hydro power, the fact that would help one in the estimation of the inconvenience that the outage at the dam caused. Mr. Edson Lobao, the Energy Minister of Brazil, said that he was not very sure as to what caused the outage at the Itaipu dam. He felt that the incident might be attributed to a “high intensity storm” or some other “atmospheric phenomenon.”
Power started to return to Rio and Sau Paulo in a few hours. However, there was enough inconvenience caused as a huge number of vehicles got stuck in the roads, causing traffic pile ups when the traffic lights went off. Private hospitals had to depend on the emergency generators. Extra police was ordered on patrol to prevent mishaps.
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Tags: absolute darkness, atmospheric phenomenon, brazil rio, dey, emergency generators, energy minister, high intensity, hydro electricity, hydro power, itaipu dam, largest cities, lobao, madhuri, megawatts, power failure, private hospitals, rio de janeiro, sau paulo, traffic lights, ups