MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Major power cut hits most of Brazil for hours

Silveira did not rule out human failure or wilful malfunction

A major-scale power outage left all of Brazil's states but one in the dark on Tuesday morning while the causes for such an event are still under investigation, it was reported. However, the National Electric System Operator (ONS) said that the reasons for the blackout and why the power grids linking the north and south of the country were separate issues. Authorities in South America's largest country said supply was back to normal after six hours.

In São Paulo, the power outage caused traffic jams during rush hour and affected subway services. In other parts of the country, drivers left their cars and walked to their destinations.

While the power cut hit mainly the northern and northeastern regions, providers interrupted supply in the south and southeast in a “controlled” manner to worse outages.

The Amazonian state of Roraima in the north was not affected by this failure, since it is not connected to the national power grid and depends on Venezuela.

The blackout began at 8:31 am. Services started being restored 45 minutes later, the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) said in a statement.

Minister of Mines and Energy Alexandre Silveira said the interruption was an extremely rare event and summoned the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Federal Police, and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) to join ONS and the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) in the investigation,

“I am absolutely convinced that the ONS, even due to its technical characteristics, will not be able to say textually whether these events were eminently technical, or whether there was also human failure or even willful misconduct,” Silveira said.

Silveira also pointed out that the country works with a redundant energy system and, “for there to have been an interruption of this magnitude,” at least two events must have occurred at the same time.

“I would be frivolous to point out that there is a direct cause [of this event] with the privatization of Eletrobras. But my position has always been that a sector like this must have a firm hand of the Brazilian state, like health, security, and education,” he said.