Power Failures Around The World - Creepy

First in the USA.

Then in England.

Then in Denmark.

Now in Italy.

Is this still a coincidence? Or is the axis of evil quietly giving a warning or doing a test run for worse things to come?

All these countries backed the war against Iraq and have been at the forefront of the war against terror.

In my lifetime, I have never seen so many power failures in practically whole countries (or at least large parts of them) within such a short time.

It makes me feel uneasy.

It could be just a coincidence, but if Spain and Australia also have large power failures in the near future, I will be worried.


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Massive blackout sweeps Italy

Sunday, September 28, 2003 Posted: 2:38 AM EDT (0638 GMT)


ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Much of Italy is without power after a blackout swept the country early Sunday morning.

There are no reports of any injuries resulting from the outage, with authorities still trying to find out what caused the power to be cut.

First reports of the blackout came at about 3:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT), quickly spreading across the country.

In the capital, Rome, daybreak brought some relief, but CNN Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci said most of the city still seemed to be without power.

Streetlights, traffic lights and public transportation across the city were all hit by the outage.

Vinci said power was reported to be slowly returning to some areas of the country, mainly in the north.

Italy imports most of its power from France and Switzerland and authorities say initial investigations point to a problem with one of the international transmission lines.

Emergency services say the timing of the outage -- early in the morning with most of the country asleep -- means they are expecting few if any casualties.

Hospitals and other emergency centers were operating using reserve power generators.

Party over
The blackout did however bring an early end to an all-night street party in Rome where shops, restaurants, tourist sites and museums were supposed to stay open until daybreak.

Heavy rain had already brought a halt to several events in the "White Night" festival and the power outage left many partygoers stranded and wet with others stuck in the city's disabled subway system.

The Italian blackout comes on the heels of other major outages elsewhere in the world this year.

On August 14 a massive blackout swept the northern and eastern United States and parts of Canada, affecting 50 million people and shutting down more than 100 power plants.

Two weeks later another outage hit London and parts of southeast England, disabling public transport at the height of the evening rush hour.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/09/28/italy.blackout/index.html