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Title: Bird's nest suspected in Portugal blackout May 10, 2000 Web posted at: 12:31 PM EDT (1631 GMT)

LISBON, Portugal (Reuters) -- A stork's nest tangled in power lines is thought to have plunged Lisbon and the southern half of Portugal into darkness, a National Grid spokesman said on Wednesday.

"In a helicopter tour near a pylon, we saw the remains of a stork, a piece of its nest and a damaged set of insulators in the affected area," the spokesman told TSF radio.

Lisbon and most of southern Portugal were without mains electricity for about one hour late Tuesday in the country's most extensive blackout for some 20 years.

"The follow-up investigation will seek to discover how a defect like this could spread over such a wide area," the spokesman added.

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http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/05/10/fringe.stork.reut/index.html

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), May 10, 2000

Answers

Fowl Play in Portugal Blackout

Story Filed: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 4:28 PM EDT

LISBON, Portugal (AP) -- New evidence found Wednesday points to fowl play in a power outage that plunged the entire southern half of Portugal, including the capital Lisbon, into darkness.

The stork did it.

National grid company REN said a dead stork was found at the foot of a pylon after presumably touching a high-voltage power line and causing a short circuit.

The automatic protection system at a major substation in Rio Maior, 50 miles north of Lisbon, did not function and the short circuit caused a domino effect that knocked out other substations further south, REN spokesman Gil Vicente told state radio RDP.

Hundreds of stork nest on top of pylons in rural Portugal. The company said birds occasionally hit power lines but the short circuits normally are confined to one line.

The lights went out in Lisbon and along a 180-mile mostly rural stretch to the Algarve coastal area around 10 p.m. Tuesday. Several million people live in the affected region.

The blackout ended in Lisbon after almost two hours, but power did not return to some suburbs of the capital until Wednesday morning.

No damage was reported.

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), May 10, 2000.