| 2003 was the darkest year in the history of world energy November 9, 1965. “Dress rehearsal for the “great blackout of 2003.” As a result of the cascading accident, eight states in the northeastern United States and part of Canada were left without power. In New York City and its suburbs, power was lost in 4 million buildings. Up to 800 thousand people were caught in a blackout in the metro, and rescuers had to bring them to the surface all night. Electricity was restored again only the next morning.
July 13, 1977. Fright Night in New York. Until 2003, this accident was considered the largest emergency in the global electric power industry. During a thunderstorm, one of the power lines was struck by lightning, after which the entire multimillion-dollar New York was plunged into darkness. The blackout lasted more than a day. During the “night of fear,” looting began in the metropolis: citizens, taking advantage of the darkness, robbed stores. 3,766 people were arrested, and damage was estimated at $300 million.
In the 90s, the most famous “risky electricity zone” was Georgia , which still suffers from a chronic lack of generating capacity. From 1993 to the present day, large, local and “great” blackouts have occurred in this republic almost more often than in the rest of the CIS combined. On May 4, 1993, the entire country was plunged into darkness for 38 minutes, and no one could find out the reason for this. On November 15, 1994, accidents occurred at the Inguri and Tbilisi hydroelectric power stations, after which almost the entire country was left without electricity. On January 18, 1995, due to another accident at the Tbilisk hydroelectric power station, the power was cut off in the entire eastern part of the country. On August 18, 2003, Georgia was again left without power due to sabotage, which caused the Inguri hydroelectric power station to shut down. On January 20 last year, due to an accident at the same hydroelectric power station, the Kavkasioni power line, through which Russian current was supplied to Georgia, was switched off, and the country again found itself without electricity. On April 6, 2004, the entire east of the republic, including Tbilisi, was left without electricity. The cause was an accident on the Kartli-2 power line.
August 14, 2003. "The Great Blackout 2003" in the USA. After a short circuit in the networks of First Energy Corp. At first, only three power lines in the northeastern United States were de-energized. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the energy company personnel did not even immediately notice this emergency. After this, overloaded power plants and substations began to turn off one by one, and an area of 24 thousand kilometers was de-energized. The accident affected eight US states and the Canadian province of Ontario, where over 50 million people lived. The largest cities in the region - Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Ottawa, Toronto - were left without electricity. More than a hundred power plants shut down, and the total damage to the economy reached $6 billion. It took more than a day to eliminate the accident.
August 28, 2003. London blackout. Due to a small failure, the center and south-east of London were cut off for 34 minutes. The main problem for the city economy was the stop of transport. The famous London Underground was partially paralyzed, and passengers had to be brought to the surface. In addition, the traffic lights on the roads were turned off.
September 23, 2003. Scandinavian blackout. 5 million Swedes and Danes were left without electricity for four hours. Train traffic stopped in the shutdown zone. Thousands of people were blocked in the Copenhagen metro. The cause of the blackout was said to be an accident on a power cable connecting Denmark with the Scandinavian Peninsula.
September 28, 2003. The great Italian blackout - the entire Apennines were left without electricity at five o'clock in the morning . 110 passenger trains were stopped on the railways. The situation was aggravated by the fact that mass celebrations were held in Rome that night. The celebrating Romans found themselves locked in the subway and elevators. However, the outage did not last long: after an hour, the current gradually began to return to the power lines. After 16 hours, power supply was completely restored. The cause of the disaster was said to be a tree torn out by a hurricane in the Swiss Alps. Its barrel shorted a high voltage power line.
October 7, 2003. "Blackout in Central Russian style." Due to the hurricane, many power lines were cut in several areas of the center and black earth zone of Russia. In the Vladimir region, 970 settlements were left without electricity, in Lipetsk and Smolensk - 580 villages, in Tambov and Belgorod - 200. Due to the breakdown of the contact network, long-distance trains and electric trains stopped.
January 18, 2005. The French-speaking cantons of Switzerland were left without electricity for an hour. It is believed that the cause was lightning striking one of the power lines. Based on materials from RIA Novosti and NEWSRU.com |
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