Circuit break caused blackout
2003-08-16 17:31
Montreal - The blackout which cloaked much of the north eastern and mid-western United States and Ontario, Canada in darkness this week probably began on the US side, near Cleveland, a top Hydro Ottawa official said.
"The latest information we have indicates that there was a break in one of the major US circuits, in Cleveland," Andre Parker, vice president of Hydro Ottawa, told local media.
"Those circuits are all interconnected, and that sparked a high-voltage chain reaction affecting Toronto, Detroit, Ottawa and New York. It's this break in the circuit that caused the major blackout we experienced," he added.
North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) chief executive officer Michael Gent said on Friday that the first irregular event recorded on Thursday was in the US Midwest.
And asked about the Lake Erie loop, a distribution route in the Great Lakes region close to Cleveland in Ohio, Gent acknowledged: "That's the centre of focus. ... The path around Lake Erie and Lake Ontario ... has always been a big, big problem. That'll turn out to be an issue here."
US and Canadian officials have been trading blame since the large swath of North America went pitch black starting at 16:11 20:11 GMT) on Thursday.
- AFP