Nationwide Power Blackout Hits Colombia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Nationwide Power Blackout Hits Colombia*
Thursday April 26, 2007 8:01 PM
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Colombia's electrical grid collapsed Thursday,
causing a nationwide blackout that halted trading on the stock exchange,
trapped people in elevators and left authorities struggling to determine
the cause.
President Alvaro Uribe told journalists in the southern city of Cali
that the blackout, which began at midmorning, ``appears to have affected
the entire country.''
Luis Alarcon, manager of state-controlled electricity distributor ISA,
told Caracol Radio that the power outage appears to have begun with an
undetermined action at a substation in Bogota and quickly spread to the
rest of the country.
He said work crews had re-established power to about 20 percent of the
country and hoped to reconnect the capital Bogota and other cities.
There was no indication of a terrorist attack.
Leftist rebels routinely sabotage electric transmission lines as part of
their four-decade old campaign to overthrow the government, but such
attacks usually have a limited impact.