Brazil: Blackout Hits Rio, Again

No Comments | November 25th, 2009 | Trackback

Two weeks to the day after a massive blackout left 60 million people without power, a similar outage hit Rio de Janeiro’s main tourist areas of Copacabana, Ipanema and Lagoa Nov. 24, raising further concerns about the city’s ability to host the 2016 Olympics. The blackout two weeks earlier was caused by short circuits in a power substation that shut down three main transmission lines, while the more recent and smaller blackout occurred when the utility company shut down power to fix an underground cable. The power was out most of the day, long enough for food to spoil in restaurants and to drive people into the streets to escape the stifling indoors in the sweltering summer heat. Rio’s Olympics organizers have vowed to create a “power island” around Rio immune from blackouts, but doing so will take time and large investments.