Tens of millions have been plunged into darkness after Brazil's two
largest cities were hit by a massive blackout that has also affected
other parts of Latin America's largest nation.

Published: 2:11AM GMT 11 Nov 2009

Media reports said problems at a huge hydroelectric dam were to blame
for the electrical outages affecting large parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao
Paulo and other cities in several states.

The subway system in Sao Paulo, Brazil's financial capital, was shut
down by the outage that occurred just after 10pm (0000 GMT) local time,
leaving thousands of people stranded.

The power failure also caused traffic jams in Rio after traffic lights
stopped working. In the city of Taguatinga near the national capital of
Brasilia, a second division Brazilian league soccer game was halted
after lights illuminating the field went dark.

The G1 website of Globo TV said Brazil lost 17,000 megawatts of power
after an unspecified problem happened at the Itaipu dam that straddles
the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

The Itaipu dam is the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer,
supplying 20 percent of Brazil's electricity.

Sao Paulo is South America's largest city, with 12 million residents.
Rio has 6 million citizens. But the metropolitan area of both cities are
much larger. Also affected was Belo Horizonte in central Brazil and the
northeastern city of Recife.

Officials did not immediately comment on Tuesday's outages. The
blackouts came three days after CBS's "60 Minutes" news program reported
several past Brazilian power outages were caused by hackers.

Brazilian officials played down the report.

Rio de Janeiro is due to host the World Cup soccer championship in 2014
and the Olympic Games in 2016.

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