Tuesday December 14 1:07 PM ET

U.S. Embassy Tells Expats in Latvia to Beware Y2K

RIGA (Reuters) - The United States embassy in Riga Tuesday warned of potential disruptions to power and utility services in Latvia that may result from Y2K-related computer malfunctions.

The embassy said in a letter to American expatriates that Latvian officials appeared ``to be generally prepared to deal with Y2K problems'' but that power failures could occur nevertheless.

``The letter calculates that up to a half-day's disruption in power may occur if the Russian power grid, which Latvia normally relies on for much of its electricity, fails, and that an energy blackout of over two hours would cause as much as three weeks of disruption in the Riga city water filtration system,'' the embassy said in a statement.

Representatives of the Baltic energy sector said in October they had agreed on a contingency plan allowing Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to operate autonomously from Russia to prevent disruption in service that might occur at the New Year, when computers are at risk of mistaking 2000 for 1900.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 14, 1999

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Li nk

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 14, 1999.