Very interesting.
David L.
Ben Franklin: “Only a
virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt, they have
more need of masters.”
| Nationwide
blackout hits Italy |
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| 58 million
people could be affected; cause of loss unknown |
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ASSOCIATED
PRESS |
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| ROME, Sept.
28 — Power went out across Italy before dawn Sunday, plunging the
nation into darkness, police and news reports said. Authorities did not
immediately know the cause. |
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THERE WAS no
official tally of customers without power, but early reports indicated
most of Italy’s 58 million people could be affected. The Aug. 14
blackout in the eastern United States affected 50 million
people.
The first Italian power outages
were reported around 4 a.m. local time in Rome, where the city was
celebrating an all-night festival with museums and restaurants open
around the clock.
Later, the national
electricity company ACEA said power was out across the nation, the ANSA
news agency said.
“As far as we know it’s
all across Italy,” police official Franca Sesti Miraglia said in
Rome.
“We don’t know the cause yet,” she
said.
ANSA said that hundreds of people
attending the all-night “White Night” festivities in Rome were stuck in
subways due to the blackout. Police could not immediately confirm the
report.
“We’re not aware of anything
really serious. There are some problems,” Sesti Miraglia said, without
giving details. “With the ’White Night,’ there were many people
out.”
In the northern city of Milan, civil
defense official Pasquale Aversa said a little power had returned there
by 7 a.m.
“In certain parts of the city,
electricity has already returned, and that is true also in some areas
around Milan,” he said. “Obviously, there are problems with having a
city in the dark. But given the situation we’re in, it’s going
well.”
He added that hospitals and other
emergency centers were using generators. Top civil defense officials
will likely hold a meeting in Rome on the matter soon, Aversa said, but
he had no further details.
INFORMATION
BLACKOUT
Information on the
outage was hard to come by: The blackout cut access to television and
radio, while some government agencies’ phone lines were constantly busy
or not responding early Sunday morning.
There were no immediate reports of outages in neighboring
countries. |
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Advertisement
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Italy was hit with partial power cuts in June, when people —
suffering in the scorching summer — overloaded the system with air
conditioners and other electricity-guzzling appliances. That was the
first time in more than 20 years that the national operator of the
electrical grid ordered power cuts.
Authorities have repeatedly said that power demand is growing
faster than supply and that imported electricity would not make up for
insufficient production in the long term.
By 7 a.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT) power was still out in the
capital, and authorities had not yet announced an explanation.
A massive blackout hit vast swaths of the northern
and eastern United States and parts of Canada on Aug. 14, affecting 50
million people and shutting down more than 100 power plants.
On Aug. 28, power briefly went out in parts of
London and southeast England, shutting off traffic lights in the British
capital and stranding hundreds of thousands of people on subways and
trains.
Authorities are still
investigating the U.S. and British outages.
©
2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
|
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