it rained a lot in curitiba, but lights are on and alright!

I'd love to know what Madonna is thinking of all this...

Apagão atinge vários Estados do Brasil

Um apagão atingiu grandes extensões de vários Estados brasileiros na noite desta terça-feira.

Por volta das 22h (horário de Brasília), o fornecimento de energia elétrica teria sido interrompido em grandes áreas dos Estados de Minas Gerais, Goiás, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Mato Grosso, Espírito Santo e Mato Grosso do Sul.

De acordo com o ONS (Operador Nacional do Sistema), cerca de 800 cidades teriam sido atingidas pela falta de energia elétrica.

Segundo o ministro de Minas e Energia, Edison Lobão, houve um desligamento completo da hidrelétrica de Itaipu Binacional.

Algumas áreas do Paraguai também ficaram sem luz, mas o fornecimento já foi normalizado nesses locais.

Segundo o assessor de comunicação da hidrelétrica Itaipu Binacional, Gilmar Piola, o problema pode ter ocorrido nas linhas de transmissão de Furnas, que podem ter caído com o vendaval que atingiu o Estado do Paraná.

“As máquinas desligaram automaticamente e nossos técnicos estão investigando o que pode ter acontecido”, disse Piola em entrevista à Rede Globo.

Segundo Piola, enquanto não se souber os motivos da interrupção, não se pode dizer quanto tempo levará para que o fornecimento seja retomado.

De acordo com ele, caso o problema seja de fato nas linhas de transmissão, a demora no retorno do fornecimento de energia elétrica pode levar dias.

All of Paraguay went dark for a few minutes. They're back online... BBC reported probs at a dam's operation. A storm? Could be hackers... Parts are back in Rio & Sao Paulo.

from msnbc: A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest nation Tuesday night, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline.

Paraguay was also affected when the Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said.

The cause of the failure had not been determined, but Lobao said strong storms uprooted trees near the Itaipu dam just before it went offline and could be to blame. Rio was the hardest hit city, he said.

Lobao said the hydro plant at the dam itself was working, but there were problems with the power lines that carry electricity across Brazil. Brazil uses almost all of the energy produced by the dam, and Paraguay consumes the rest.

Brazil's official Agencia Brasil news agency said Tuesday's outage started about 10:20 p.m. (1220 GMT), snarling streets in Rio after traffic lights stopped working. Subway service was knocked out in both Rio and Sao Paulo, and G1 said Sao Paulo subway users were forced to abandon train cars.

In the city of Taguatinga near the national capital of Brasilia, a second division Brazilian league soccer game was halted after lights illuminating the field went dark. No power outages happened in Brasilia.

Dont eat the ice cream, it is too much! :)

That is freaking bizzare! I don't know if you saw it, but last Sunday night "60 Minutes" ran a feature about terrorists hacking into the Brazillian power grid a few years ago, causing extensive power outages near Rio and some other areas of the country. I hope that is not happening to you guys again. Good-luck and enjoy the ice cream.

We had a devil of a time getting news as to how extensive the blackout was; the BBC had far more information than the American media. There was some initial speculation that international politics had some role in the blackout once the source of the blackout was discerned, but that still remains conjecture. There is a built-in fail safe mechanism that prevents local power stations from overloading, which can cause a domino effect of cascading failures --we learned that when the entire Western US was blacked out a few years ago. It was a relief to find out that (at least initially) people rose to the challenge of the situation and avoided chaos.

This was a story on 60 minutes SUNDAY about hackers!

You recall the NY blackout years ago? Your age is showing. I was 6 then. I'm 52 now. :>

I meant the other blackout, like 7 years ago or something. Notice I mentioned The Mercer.

I was on my way back to NYC last night, when the lights went out at the Sao Paulo Airport. They must have had a back up generator, because the lights were back on in less than 5 minutes and we took off pretty much on time. I didn't learn how widespread the outage was until this morning when I returned home. Glad the lights are back on and there doesn't seem to be too much "damage" thankfully! Be well!

I read about the blackout at another site this morning. The guy reporting is currently in Rio! He stated that he and his friends just went to their darkened hotel room and waited until the lights came on!

In 1989 when we had a rather substantial earthquake in Northern California, I decided to drive around. Well, all I can write is that is was indeed scary for me, so I managed to return home and go out on my large balcony of my apartment in Pacific Grove and enjoy the expanse of blackness and be thankful that there was no damage in my place or area as opposed to some nearby communities as well as San Francisco and some of its surrounding areas!