Rio Suffers Massive Blackout

Much of Brazil was plunged into eerie darkness last night as a problem at a hydroelectric dam left millions without electricity for several hours.

Only car headlights, candles, and the odd power generator provided any source of illumination for millions of Brazilians. Other cities such as Sao Paulo were also left in blackness for more than two hours, while all of neighbouring Paraguay was also without power for half an hour. Rio's famed Copacabana beach was also left in darkness, with some diners heading down to some of the strip's restaurants for meals served by candle light.

Brazil's official Agencia Brasil news agency said Tuesday's outage started about 10:20 p.m. local time, snarling streets in Rio, where traffic that is normally chaotic turned riotous. Cars, taxis and buses sped through dark intersections, honking to make their presence known as they zoomed through. Pedestrians scampered across avenues, and tourists scurried back to a handful of luxury beach hotels, the only buildings with light. Many other tourists left their hotel rooms along Copacabana beach because of the lack of air conditioning and milled around on the unlit streets. A group of muggers took advantage of the darkness to rob people en masse near Rio's Maracana stadium, which will host the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies.

The outage adds to fears that Brazil - and Rio's - infrastructure will not be ready for the influx of people for the games. The outage was initially blamed on the large Itaipu dam, which straddles Brazil and Paraguay's borders and produces 17,000 megawatts of power. Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said outages hit nine of the 27 states in this country of more than 190 million people. There continues to be disagreement among experts as to exactly what triggered the outage.

The blackout came on the heels of a wave of gang fighting in Rio's favelas that led to violence fears for the Olympics. The blackout also came two days after CBS's '60 Minutes' news program reported that several past Brazilian power outages were caused by computer hackers.