16 METRO Thursday, November 12, 2009 D In the shadow of a power crisis Major electricity shutdown sends 60million people into darkness Blackout: The famous Copacabana resort was dark, with cars providing the only light. Brazils ability to host the 2014 World Cup and Olympics in 2016 is in doubt Pictures: AP/Felipe Dana Biggest cut bar none: The exact cost of the outage to Brazils economy cannot be calculated but some made the best of it ABOUT 60million South Americans have been plunged into darkness in one of the biggest ever power cuts. It hit two of Brazils biggest cities and the whole of Paraguay. Burglars and thieves had a field day as people in ten states resorted to lamps and candles to find their way around. The sprawling metropolis of Sao Paulo home to more than 19mil- lion people was hit along with Rio de Janeiro, which last month won the race to host the 2016 Olym- pic Games. Traffic descended into chaos when traffic lights went down and pedes- trians negotiated the darkened streets. Residents in blocks of flats were trapped when lifts stopped working. Extra police were dep- loyed to maintain calm. Initially, a hydro-electric plant at Itaipu dam on the Paraguay border was blamed for the switch-off. But technicians believe the fault lies with Brazils power transmission system, which was damaged by a storm. Paraguay, which relies on the hydro- electric plant for virtually all its pow- er, lost the supply for 15min. The government is now under int- ense pressure to upgrade the power and transport infrastructure ahead of the 2014 World Cup to be held in Brazil. Officials at Fifa and the International Olympic Committee will take a dim view of passengers being forced to abandon stranded underground trains and walk along darkened tracks. Its sad to see such a beautiful city with such a precarious infra- structure, said 22-year-old law stud- ent Igor Fernandes. This shouldnt happen in a city that is going to host the Olympic Games. Experts say the countrys power infrastructure is simply badly main- tained and outages are inevitable. BY FRED ATTEWILL index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html