BreakingNews' RodrigoBNO posts this haunting shot of Rio de Janeiro's iconic Copacabana Beach shrouded in darkness. Power is slowly being restored to Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest urban areas, after an outage at a mammoth hydoelectric dam thrust about half of the nation’s 190 million people into darkness.
Rio’s Governor Sergio Cabral deployed 300 military police to maintain calm in the city, which was the most affected by the outage. ... Authorities closed Rio’s international airport and the subway systems in Sao Paulo and Rio shut after the blackout struck around 10 p.m. local time, CBN Radio reported. The southeastern port of Santos wasn’t affected because it was operating on its own generators, CBN Radio reported. Light SA, which distributes power in Rio, urged residents to stay home and TV Globo reported random assaults by thieves on city streets.
Police in Rio and Sao Paulo asked residents not go into the darkened streets to avoid accidents and an upsurge in the already prolific street crime.
The energy ministry says the massive outage was caused by a problem at at the 14,000-megawatt Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the Paraguay border. The world’s largest dam was forcibly shutdown for the first time since it went online in 1983.
Only three days ago, CBS' 60 Minutes reported hackers were behind similar blackouts in 2005 and 2007.
I would not be surprised if there was an uprising from the favelas during the darkness.
Posted by: soulbrotha | 11 November 2009 at 00:14
"Rio’s Governor Sergio Cabral deployed 300 military police to maintain calm in the city, which was the most affected by the outage"
Only 300 troops? Hopefully all the policia are on patrol. That city is quiet dangerous as it is.
Posted by: Laurent | 11 November 2009 at 00:19
Scary picture...
Still, I'm sure all those big, delicious Brazilian boys will find something to do in the dark.
Posted by: Garçon Stupide | 11 November 2009 at 07:42
I never thought of hackers being that cruel before.
Posted by: libhomo | 11 November 2009 at 09:47
Note to Washington DC... improve our infrastructure it maters!!!
Posted by: rey | 11 November 2009 at 15:07
it's pretty scary to think that computer hackers have causes such a sweeping blackout
Posted by: Greg Delaney | 11 November 2009 at 21:15
Hmmm, yeah Rio is going to ready for the Olympics :-P
Posted by: Douglas | 12 November 2009 at 19:53