ALMOST ALL the country's 57 million people were affected — a similar scale to last month's collapse in the Northeastern United States and Canada. But coming on a weekend night its initial impact was less dramatic and caused less economic damage.
Industry Minister Antonio Marzano called for an investigation into the outage, which highlighted Italy's heavy reliance on power imports.
The national grid GRTN blamed the blackout on problems in the Swiss and French networks. "We will look at all the data in the computer," Marzano told a news conference.
It was the fourth major Western blackout in two months, after cuts in North America, parts of London and Scandinavia.
"It's chaos, and until the electricity comes back on it will continue to be chaos," said policeman Fabio Bragazzi at Rome's Termini train station where passengers, among more than 30,000 stranded nationwide, slept on the ground.
Eighteen hours after the blackout hit the exact cause was not known, but Italy ruled out foul play. Italy, France and Switzerland all sought to deflect blame for the outage, which spread through the country within four seconds.
FEW PROVINCES STILL IN DARKNESS
By Sunday evening, only a handful of the 103 provinces were still without some power, mostly in the south where some water supplies were also cut.
But train services remained disrupted and many traffic lights were out in Rome, causing traffic jams. Civil defense sent text messages to mobile phones urging people not to use their cars or go to train stations.
The four deaths included a man killed in a traffic accident at an intersection where the lights had failed, an elderly woman burned by candles that fell on her, and two elderly women who fell down stairs.
Authorities attributed the outage to a breakdown of electricity lines, some in heavy storms, from France and Switzerland — neighbors supplying Italy some 17 percent of its power. But they disagreed on who was to blame.
CAUSE DISPUTED
Swiss power firm ATEL said a tree, uprooted by strong winds, had knocked out a line carrying power to Italy over the Alps. But it said that alone could not block power to all of Italy, and blamed Italy's power grid for not reacting swiftly enough.
"The Italians had to react and according to our information they did not react properly," ATEL spokesman Rolf Schmid said.
Rome's underground railway was evacuated and the outage marred a special "open night" in the city where shops, tourist sites and museums were to stay open until daybreak.
Patrons in one Rome cafe without power to run the coffee machine turned to liquor instead. "We're not happy at all," one partygoer said.
'THE ICE CREAMS ARE MELTING'
At another darkened Rome cafe, manager Massimo Purificato complained he was losing business without his espresso machine and the ability to make croissants.
“All the ice creams are melting. It’s a disaster,” he said. “We’ve lost money and clients.”
Fabrizio Volpi, a 21-year-old student, was briefly stuck in a nightclub when the lights went out. “There was panic, especially from the women,” he said.
Hospitals used generators to keep crucial equipment running, emergency centers were flooded with calls, and traffic accidents occurred as drivers zoomed toward intersections without traffic lights. Airports turned on generators to light up runways, though many flights were delayed and a few canceled, the ANSA news agency said.
Some 110 trains were stopped across the nation with 30,000 passengers on board, and hundreds of people were stranded during an all-night festival in Rome that kept museums and restaurants open around the clock, ANSA reported.
The city had encouraged Romans and tourists to use public transport, but many stranded travelers ended up sleeping in the out-of-service subway stations.
'NO MAJOR CRISIS'
Authorities urged citizens not to panic. “Everybody stay calm,” said Civil Defense chief Guido Bertolaso. “There is no major crisis at the moment.”
Premier Silvio Berlusconi was closely following events, his spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said.
Many cities were tormented by the din of burglar alarms tripped by the power cuts.
Power also went out for about three hours in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier in the night. Austria, Slovenia and Croatia — Italy’s neighbors to the north and east — reported no problems.
In Italy, politicians acknowledged the domestic energy system was insufficient making the country too reliant on imported power.
Some Italians have worried that new power plants could damage the environment — a position that has slowed new plant constructions. Also, national demand has shot up in recent years, prompting energy officials to warn of possible blackouts.
“I would like my fellow citizens to know that we must build new plants and networks on our territory or the situation will remain the same,” said Paolo Scaroni, CEO of power company Enel.
RECENT OUTAGES
Italy was hit with partial power cuts in June, when people — suffering in the scorching summer — overloaded the system with air conditioners and other electricity-guzzling appliances. That was the first time in more than 20 years that the national operator of the electrical grid ordered power cuts.
Last week, nearly 4 million people in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden were without electricity for more than three hours after a rare power outage plagued parts of Scandinavia.
On Aug. 28, power briefly went out in parts of London and southeast England, shutting off traffic lights in the British capital and stranding hundreds of thousands of people on subways and trains.
Authorities are still investigating the British outage, as well as the Aug. 14 blackout in Canada and the United States.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Industry Minister Antonio Marzano called for an investigation into the outage, which highlighted Italy's heavy reliance on power imports.
The national grid GRTN blamed the blackout on problems in the Swiss and French networks. "We will look at all the data in the computer," Marzano told a news conference.
It was the fourth major Western blackout in two months, after cuts in North America, parts of London and Scandinavia.
"It's chaos, and until the electricity comes back on it will continue to be chaos," said policeman Fabio Bragazzi at Rome's Termini train station where passengers, among more than 30,000 stranded nationwide, slept on the ground.
Eighteen hours after the blackout hit the exact cause was not known, but Italy ruled out foul play. Italy, France and Switzerland all sought to deflect blame for the outage, which spread through the country within four seconds.
FEW PROVINCES STILL IN DARKNESS
By Sunday evening, only a handful of the 103 provinces were still without some power, mostly in the south where some water supplies were also cut.
But train services remained disrupted and many traffic lights were out in Rome, causing traffic jams. Civil defense sent text messages to mobile phones urging people not to use their cars or go to train stations.
The four deaths included a man killed in a traffic accident at an intersection where the lights had failed, an elderly woman burned by candles that fell on her, and two elderly women who fell down stairs.
Authorities attributed the outage to a breakdown of electricity lines, some in heavy storms, from France and Switzerland — neighbors supplying Italy some 17 percent of its power. But they disagreed on who was to blame.
CAUSE DISPUTED
Swiss power firm ATEL said a tree, uprooted by strong winds, had knocked out a line carrying power to Italy over the Alps. But it said that alone could not block power to all of Italy, and blamed Italy's power grid for not reacting swiftly enough.
"The Italians had to react and according to our information they did not react properly," ATEL spokesman Rolf Schmid said.
Rome's underground railway was evacuated and the outage marred a special "open night" in the city where shops, tourist sites and museums were to stay open until daybreak.
Patrons in one Rome cafe without power to run the coffee machine turned to liquor instead. "We're not happy at all," one partygoer said.
'THE ICE CREAMS ARE MELTING'
At another darkened Rome cafe, manager Massimo Purificato complained he was losing business without his espresso machine and the ability to make croissants.
“All the ice creams are melting. It’s a disaster,” he said. “We’ve lost money and clients.”
Fabrizio Volpi, a 21-year-old student, was briefly stuck in a nightclub when the lights went out. “There was panic, especially from the women,” he said.
Hospitals used generators to keep crucial equipment running, emergency centers were flooded with calls, and traffic accidents occurred as drivers zoomed toward intersections without traffic lights. Airports turned on generators to light up runways, though many flights were delayed and a few canceled, the ANSA news agency said.
Some 110 trains were stopped across the nation with 30,000 passengers on board, and hundreds of people were stranded during an all-night festival in Rome that kept museums and restaurants open around the clock, ANSA reported.
The city had encouraged Romans and tourists to use public transport, but many stranded travelers ended up sleeping in the out-of-service subway stations.
'NO MAJOR CRISIS'
Authorities urged citizens not to panic. “Everybody stay calm,” said Civil Defense chief Guido Bertolaso. “There is no major crisis at the moment.”
Premier Silvio Berlusconi was closely following events, his spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said.
Many cities were tormented by the din of burglar alarms tripped by the power cuts.
Power also went out for about three hours in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier in the night. Austria, Slovenia and Croatia — Italy’s neighbors to the north and east — reported no problems.
In Italy, politicians acknowledged the domestic energy system was insufficient making the country too reliant on imported power.
Some Italians have worried that new power plants could damage the environment — a position that has slowed new plant constructions. Also, national demand has shot up in recent years, prompting energy officials to warn of possible blackouts.
“I would like my fellow citizens to know that we must build new plants and networks on our territory or the situation will remain the same,” said Paolo Scaroni, CEO of power company Enel.
RECENT OUTAGES
Italy was hit with partial power cuts in June, when people — suffering in the scorching summer — overloaded the system with air conditioners and other electricity-guzzling appliances. That was the first time in more than 20 years that the national operator of the electrical grid ordered power cuts.
Last week, nearly 4 million people in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden were without electricity for more than three hours after a rare power outage plagued parts of Scandinavia.
On Aug. 28, power briefly went out in parts of London and southeast England, shutting off traffic lights in the British capital and stranding hundreds of thousands of people on subways and trains.
Authorities are still investigating the British outage, as well as the Aug. 14 blackout in Canada and the United States.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
