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Failed transmission lines in Ohio considered cause of outage
The head of the US North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) said Saturday that the massive power outage that hit part of the United States and Canada on Thursday apparently started in Ohio.
It was "fairly certain at this time that the disturbance started in Ohio," Michehl Gent, the Council's president, said in a telephone news conference, the CNN reported on its web site.
The Council was founded after the outage in New York in 1965 and is a nonprofit organization sponsored by the electric industry.
Gent, attributing the blackout to the failure of three transmission lines in Ohio, also said it was not clear why the blackout was out of control and spread throughout Northeast and Midwest America and southern Canada.
"We are now trying to determine why the situation was not brought under control," he added. "It should have stopped."
On Thursday, power outage hit the New York City, Cleveland, Detroit, parts of New York State, northern New Jersey and Connecticut, and cities of Toronto and Ottawa in Canada.
The blackout affected some 60 million people in the two countries, shut down power plants, paralyzed the transportation and threw the cities into darkness, with only three deaths reported.
The outage also touched off finger pointing between the United States and Canada, with each blaming the other for the cause of the blackout. The two countries agreed to form a task force, headed by US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Canadian Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal, to investigate the cause of the outage.
Meanwhile, Congressional hearings are reportedly to be slated next month.
Two days after the massive blackout, normalcy has returned to most of the affected regions. In New York state, Governor George Pataki said Saturday that "essentially 100 percent power has been restored all across New York State," the CNN reported.
In New York City, almost of all the main subway lines are operating again.
Power returns to much of Canada's Ontario Province
Power has returned to much of Canada's Ontario Province, but energy suppliers are warning of rolling outages over the weekend, Ontario Premier Ernie Eves told a press conference Saturday.
He urged residents and big businesses to save energy as the province trying to recover from the biggest power failure in
North American history.
"The usage went up in the last hour and a half alone. We're still within our capacity but there is not a lot more to go,"
Eves added.
He said a big test will come when people go back to work on Monday and start turning on computers and air conditioners.
Energy suppliers said the more energy people are able to conserve, the less need there will be for rotating power outages. Officials have also warned residents could be left in the dark again.
Earlier, Eves asked the province's 10 million residents to limit water consumption until the power system was back to full capacity, possibly by the end of the weekend.
Latin American presidents sign anti-terrorism declaration
The presidents of eight
Latin American countries signed on Saturday a declaration in Asuncion, capital of Paraguay, pledging to boost their effort to fight terrorism and drug trafficking in the region.
The Declaration of Asuncion also urged regional solidarity
with the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, whose country is plagued by a 40-year-long internal war, news from Asuncion said.
The document was signed by the leaders, who were in Asuncion
to attend Friday's inauguration ceremony of Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte.
The leaders include Duarte, Cuban President Fidel Castro and presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Uruguay.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez abstained from signing the document.
Bomb attacks thwarted in Colombia
Three bombs, placed by guerrilla units in an urban area of northeastern Colombia, were defused by army troops, the army said on Saturday.
The explosive devices were placed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in crowded areas in the city of Saravena,365 km northeast of the capital, in order to produce "regrettable losses," the army said in
communique.
The bombs were discovered in time and were deactivated by army troops Friday night.
The bombs, made up of black powder and shrapnel, were prepared to attack passing army personnel, said General Carlos Lemus, commander of the 18th Army Brigade.
In the past three months, the FARC and the National Liberation Army have detonated several car bombs in Saravena, Arauca state. Electricity pylons and oil pipelines in the municipality were
also attacked by the two largest rebel groups in Colombia.
According to governmental figures, during the first half of this year, the state of Arauca headed the list of terrorist attacks reported in Colombia with 325 attacks. The latest attack, taking place on Aug. 8, left five dead when a car bomb exploded.
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