Blackout in U.S. and Canada

An unprecedented blackout has occurred over major U.S. and Canadian cities including New York, Detroit, Toronto and Ottawa on August 14th.

This massive power outage that occurred around 4 p.m. brought a disturbing situation in New York and Ohio State, causing the announcement of a general state of emergency and suspension of operations at some nuclear power plants.

The U.S. press estimated that some 50 million in eight states have been greatly affected by this power outage.

The incident began near Niagara Falls at the border of the U.S. and Canada and rapidly spread on to the North Eastern part of the U.S. – New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Canada`s Ontario.

American officials announced that some troubles were detected at a New York-based power plant that controls the electricity supply and the situation was not caused by a terrorist attack. U.S. President George W. Bush visiting San Diego, California to attend an election fundraising event said, “This is not a terrorist act.”

Canadian Premier Office argued that a fire at the New York power plant triggered the outage.

However, the exact cause for the incident had not been released even 12 hours after the outage occurred, making people wonder if an attack was indeed the cause.

IN some affected areas, the power supply was brought back in two hours, but more time is expected to take until the complete normalization of the power supply in the U.S. and Canada occurs.

The power outage has caused nine nuclear power plants in New York and Ohio State to be temporarily shut down and seven airports to suspend take-offs.

With the return commute of employees who called it a day earlier than usual, major cities were strewn with crowds and cars causing severe traffic congestion due to the loss of traffic lights and other signals.

In some areas, the operation of subways and trains was suspended while other people were trapped inside subway stations and elevators. New Yorkers suffered sweltering heat with air conditioning systems out of commission.

Back in 1996, a power outage that affected 4 million in nine Western states in the U.S. occurred and in 1977, the electricity supply was suspended for 25 hours in New York.

Kwan-Hee Hong Jin Lee konihong@donga.com leej@donga.com