Weather cited in Brazil blackout
Outage raises questions about country’s infrastructure ahead of Olympics

The weather made transformers on a vital high-voltage transmission line short-circuit, Brazil’s energy minister said. Two more lines also went down as part of an automatic safety mechanism.

The blackout cut electricity to 18 of Brazil’s 26 states and left them without power for up to four hours Tuesday night. The federal district that includes the national capital of Brasilia was spared. About 7 million people also lost water service in Sao Paulo. All of Paraguay briefly lost power.

The massive Itaipu dam on the border with Paraguay — the world’s second-largest hydroelectric power producer — was completely shut down for the first time.

In Brazil’s largest cities of Rio and Sao Paulo, people were trapped in elevators, stranded on trains or stuck in sweltering apartments during unusually hot spring temperatures that have hit the 90s.

"I wonder how this could have happened and am worried about what it does to Brazil’s image, especially with the World Cup and Olympics coming up,” said Wesley Aragao, a 24-year-old sailor who waited out the blackout at his parents’ house in northern Rio. "Nobody likes to be left in the dark.”

The Brazilian Olympic Committee would not comment on Tuesday’s blackout. The city will have its own direct energy feed during the games.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended his government from criticism that it has not done enough to improve the power grid. He took office in 2003, two years after Brazil suffered shortages and rationing under his predecessor.

"In seven years, we created 30 percent of all the transmission lines built in the last 130 years,” Silva said Wednesday. "There was no shortage of power generation, and the problem was not a lack of transmission lines.”

Lobao said Silva’s government has invested about $13 billion in the transmission lines and another $4.7 billion in transformers since 2003.

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