Venezuela suffers massive, nationwide power failure

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WIRE:08/18/2000 18:57:00 ET Venezuela suffers massive, nationwide power failure CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) _ A sudden, nationwide power failure in Venezuela Friday trapped people in elevators, shut down subway stations, and interrupted President Hugo Chavez in mid-sentence during a televised news conference. Power went out at 2:10 p.m. in 70 percent of the country and flickered off and on sporadically throughout the afternoon. Officials said most of the problems were fixed by early evening. Police swiftly took over key facilities such as underground trains, and the state electricity company held a televised press conference to calm tensions. The company, Edelca, said the outage was due to technical problems in Venezuela"s main hydroelectric plant in the southwestern city of Guri. The power outage forced Chavez to end a press conference at the Central Bank. An emergency power system was put into effect at the bank to evacuate the president. Chavez, known for his lengthy speeches, joked with journalists, saying he could keep talking in the dark.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20000818_1154.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 18, 2000

Answers

This is the kind of thing I was looking for in many places in January.

-- Nancy7 (nancy7@Hotmail.com), August 18, 2000.

Yes, this example of a MAJOR power breakdown--effecting an entire country--makes me wonder: Was my original "termites" theory of y2k right? Or, is it just more background noise?

-- JackW (jwpayne@webtv.net), August 18, 2000.

It always figured that this sort of thing would occur in a more backward country, or banana republic first. Sure makes me wonder, too, if this is a precursor of anything, maybe, more widespread.

-- Billiver (billiver@aol.com), August 18, 2000.

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