Short history of blackouts of the world
1. NORTHEAST UNITED STATES AND NORTHERN CANADA //
NOVEMBER 9, 1965
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A faulty relay at Sir Adam Beck Station on the Ontario side of Niagara
Falls led to what was then the biggest power failure in U.S. history. At
5:16 p.m., the tripping of a 230-kV transmission line began a domino
effect resulting in a surge of power that overwhelmed transmission
lines and put New York City in the dark at the height of a Tuesday rush
hour. 800,000 people were reported trapped in the subway.
•
In addition to New York, power overloads and automatic system
shutdowns affected 30 million people in New Jersey, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire,Vermont, Quebec, and
Ontario. 10,000 National Guardsmen and 5,000 off-duty police officers
were called into service to prevent looting, although it turned out to be
relatively calm and peaceful. Power was restored for most people
within 13 hours.
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2. THAILAND NATIONWIDE BLACKOUT // MARCH 18, 1978
• When generators in the South Pranakhorn Powerplant in Samut Prakan
failed, a nationwide blackout spread throughout Thailand. It would be
over nine hours before authorities were able to restore power. In May
2013, Thailand suffered another major power failure, sparking
memories of the massive incident of '78.
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3. CANADA'S GEOMAGNETIC STORM // MARCH 13, 1989
• On March 13, 1989 the entire province of Quebec, Canada suffered an
electrical power blackout lasting 12 hours—and it was all thanks to the
sun.
• Sometimes, the sun emits billion-ton clouds of ionized gas, known as a
coronal mass ejection (CME). On March 10, 1989, a CME "about the size
of 36 Earths" and equivalent to "the energy of thousands of nuclear
bombs exploding at the same time" escaped. On the 12th, the gas cloud
crashed against Earth's magnetosphere
• Because of this event, six million Quebec residents were thrust into
darkness when the province's power grid lost power. Schools and
businesses were forced to close during the 12 hour blackout, as well as
the Montreal Metro and Dorval Airport.
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4. SOUTHERN BRAZIL // MARCH 11, 1999
•In 1999, approximately 97 million of the 160 million people living in
Brazil lost power in what was the biggest blackout ever at the time. A bolt
of lightning struck an electricity substation, which in turn shut down Itaipu,
which was the largest power plant in the world.
•1,200 military police officers were placed in Rio to avoid looting, while
city tunnels in São Paulo were closed to prevent assaults. 60,000 subway
riders were heavily inconvenienced.
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5. INDIA // JANUARY 2, 2001
•
A 12-hour power outage caused by a failure of an Uttar Pradesh
substation triggered India's northern grid to collapse. This affected
about 226 million people, or roughly a quarter of the country's
population. The Confederation of Indian Industry estimated that the
loss to business amounted to about $107.1 million.
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6. NORTHEAST UNITED STATES AND CANADA // AUGUST 14-15,
2003
• What actually happened was a high-voltage power line in Northern Ohio
brushed against overgrown trees, causing it to shut down. When the
alarm system that would typically alert FirstEnergy Corporation failed,
the incident was ignored. In the next 90 minutes, system operators tried
to figure out what happened while three other lines switched off as a
consequence of the first line's failure.
• This started a domino effect, and by 4:05 p.m. Southeast Canada and
eight Northeastern U.S. states were without power. 50 million people
were inconvenienced for up to two days in what turned out to be the
biggest blackout in North American history. 11 people died and there
was a reported $6 billion in damages. The incident prompted the creation
of a joint task force between the U.S. and Canada to minimize future
blackouts.
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7. ITALY // SEPTEMBER 28, 2003
• Italy's 2003 blackout affected almost all of the country's 57 million
people. Usually a middle-of-the-night power outage means that few
people will notice it. However, this event occurred during the early
morning hours after Rome's Nuit Blanche, an all-night arts festival.
Because of this, trains were still running at 3:01 a.m. when a fault on
the Swiss power system caused the overloading of two internal lines
near to the Italian border. About 110 trains carrying more than 30,000
passengers were stranded as a result.
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8. JAVA AND BALI, INDONESIA // AUGUST 18, 2005
• At 10:23 a.m. on a Thursday morning, a failure in a 500 kV
transmission line between Cilegon and Saguling in West Java cut
electricity supplies, leading to a massive 5,000 MW shutdown.
Jakarta, the capital of the fourth most populated country in the world,
lost power, and half of the Indonesian population — 100 million
people — were without electricity for almost 11 hours.
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9. GERMANY, FRANCE, ITALY, AND SPAIN // NOVEMBER 4, 2006
• When German power company switched off a high-voltage line across
the River Ems in order to let a cruise ship pass, 10-15 million Europeans
lost power. The company said that the problems began in northwestern
Germany when its network became overloaded, possibly due to that
manual switch off (although transmission lines had been shut down in the
past without incident). The blackouts stopped trains in Germany and
trapped dozens of people in elevators in France and Italy. Austria,
Belgium, and Spain were also affected by the outage.
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10. CHENZHOU, CHINA // JANUARY 24 - FEBRUARY 2008
• Winter storms resulted in a nearly two-week blackout for 4.6 million
people around the central Chinese city of Chenzhou. Frustratingly, many
citizens were without power during Chinese New Year celebrations. The
official Xinhua News Agency said 11 electricians died while working to
restore power, and the storm's death toll exceeded 60.
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11. BRAZIL AND PARAGUAY // NOVEMBER 10-11, 2009
• When the Itapiu hydroelectric dam on the Paraguay-Brazil border
suddenly stopped producing 17,000 MW of power, outages quickly
spread through both countries.
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12. INDIA // JULY 30-31, 2012
• In the largest electrical outage in history (so far), the July 31st blackout
of India affected an area encompassing about 670 million people, which
is around 9% of the world’s population. On the 31st, three of the
country’s interconnected northern power grids collapsed for several
hours, affecting 22 states from the country's Eastern border with
Myanmar to its western border with Pakistan
• Citizens of Delhi dealt with 89% humidity and, in West Bengal,
hundreds of miners were trapped underground for hours after their lifts
broke down. In the most disturbing and vivid detail, Overloading and
human error were eventually blamed for the troubles.