http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3037265&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.1.1
Colombia in Dark After Power Grid Collapses
Last Edited: Thursday, 26 Apr 2007, 4:13 PM CDT
Created: Thursday, 26 Apr 2007, 1:43 PM CDT
04/26/2007 --
Colombia's electrical grid collapsed Thursday, causing a nationwide
blackout that halted trading on the stock exchange, trapped people in elevators
and left authorities struggling to determine the cause.
President Alvaro Uribe told journalists in the southern city of Cali that
the blackout, which began at midmorning, "appears to have affected the entire
country."
Luis Alarcon, manager of state-controlled electricity distributor ISA,
told Caracol Radio that the power outage appears to have begun with an
undetermined technical glitch at a substation in Bogota and quickly spread to
the rest of the country.
He said work crews had re-established power to about 20 percent of the
country and hoped to reconnect the capital Bogota and other cities in a few
hours.
There was no indication of a terrorist attack.
Leftist rebels routinely sabotage electric transmission lines as part of
their four-decade old campaign to overthrow the government, but such attacks
usually have a limited impact.
