Crimea has been left without power after pylons carrying power lines which supply electricity from Ukraine were reportedly blown up on November 21.
According to local reports, all four power lines were cut, leaving the region’s two million inhabitants without electricity.
Images circulated on social media appeared to show Ukrainian flags attached to the damaged pylons.
Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, but the Ukrainian authorities have continued to supply power to the area.
Crimean authorities said they had managed to partially reconnect the cities of Simferopol, Yalta and Saky using generators.
Photo AFP
Crimea’s Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Sheremet said the peninsula’s hospitals had backup power sources and would not be affected.
The Crimean Emergencies Ministry has declared a state of emergency and put rescue teams on high alert.
“Crimea is completely cut off,” Viktor Plakida, the director of Crimea Energy, told Russia’s Tass news agency.
A local emergency response official told Russia’s Tass news agency that Crimea was “operating in standalone mode”.
Crimea can only produce half the power it needs, Mikhail Sheremet said.
Two of the four main power lines were cut in an earlier attack on November 20, reports said.
Ukrainian authorities said they encountered activists blockading the site when they tried to repair the damaged pylons.
“The nature of the damage shows that it took place as a result of shelling or the use of explosive devices,” Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo said in a statement.
Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group native to the peninsula who oppose Russian rule, held a protest at the site of the broken power lines in Kherson region, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Dozens of provinces across Turkey have been hit by a major power blackout on Tuesday, March 31.
According to Turkish officials, a break in connections with mainland Europe could be to blame for the outage.
The cuts affected power stations and public transport, including Istanbul’s tram and metro systems.
A crisis centre has been set up at the energy ministry.
Photo Reuters
PM Ahmet Davutoglu has said all possible causes are being examined, including terrorism. The outage hit at 10:36 local time on Tuesday morning.
By early afternoon the Turkish Electricity Transmission company said only 15% of Istanbul and Ankara had power. Istanbul’s transport company said all of its lines were back up and running.
Turkish TV reported that power had been re-established in the cities of Edirne, Tekirdag, Erzurum and Trabzon.
“Our main target right now is to restore the network. This is not an incident that we see frequently,” Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Turkish media.
Turkey suffers from sporadic power outages but locals say they cannot remember such a nationwide cut for a generation.
One of the few cities unaffected by the power cut was Van in eastern Turkey, where electricity is supplied from Iran.
Hurricane Gonzalo left a trail of damage in its wake on the tiny Atlantic territory of Bermuda.
Bermuda was “bruised” but came out of the storm better than expected, Premier Michael Dunkley said in a radio broadcast.
The storm made landfall on October 17, with strong winds and rain causing power cuts for most residents.
Only minor injuries were reported in the wake of 110mph winds.
It was the strongest storm to hit the British overseas territory in a decade.
Initially a category 4 storm, Hurricane Gonzalo was downgraded to category 2 on October 17 as it weakened on its approach to Bermuda.
Hurricane Gonzalo left a trail of damage in its wake on the tiny Atlantic territory of Bermuda
Hurricane Gonzalo caused power cuts to 31,200 homes, but two-thirds had had their electricity restored by Saturday afternoon, according to the Bermuda Electric Company.
The hurricane caused flooding, felled trees, knocked down power lines and damaged buildings, including the island’s main hospital.
Bermuda’s international airport closed in anticipation of the storm and many roads were closed after being blocked by falling debris.
The main hospital saw some damage to its roof but otherwise fared well, Michael Dunkley said.
“As far as roads and infrastructure, we are in a much better position than many people might have thought,” he said, adding that the damage could be replaced, that thankfully no lives were lost, and only minor injuries were reported.
The Royal Navy has deployed a frigate, HMS Argyll, along with trained medical personnel to help with the provision of humanitarian assistance in Bermuda, the UK Ministry of Defense said.
It said the ship was en route to Bermuda, where it will help recover power, communications and water supplies, while a helicopter on the ship will carry out surveillance over the island.
Just days earlier, Tropical Storm Fay damaged homes and knocked down trees and power lines there.
“To be struck twice by two different cyclones is unusual, to say the least,” said Max Mayfield, a former director of the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Bermuda, an affluent island chain in the western Atlantic Ocean, is a popular tourist destination as well as a global hub for insurance companies and frequently sees strong tropical storms.
Power supplies and transport have been disrupted after south-west England and south Wales were hit by a powerful storm.
Engineers have been working to restore power but more than 7,000 homes are still without electricity.
In Dawlish, Devon, a section of sea wall under the railway line collapsed, leaving the track suspended in mid-air.
UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron will chair a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee later to consider the government’s response.
It is the first time this year that the prime minister will have chaired a meeting of Cobra to discuss the floods and follows widespread criticism of Environment Secretary Owen Paterson’s handling of the crisis.
Power supplies and transport have been disrupted after south-west England and south Wales were hit by a powerful storm
The prime minister’s office said David Cameron was anxious to ensure that “all that can be done is being done”.
Earlier, First Great Western said all lines between Exeter St Davids and Penzance were closed because of adverse weather conditions and it advised against travel for the rest of the day.
Part of the sea wall at Dawlish, which is between Exeter and Cornwall, has collapsed and the railway station and tracks have been severely damaged by huge waves, driven by gale-force winds.
Western Power Distribution said about 44,000 customers had been affected by power cuts since Tuesday afternoon and 7,400 homes in south-west England remained without power.
The Met Office said gusts of up to 70mph and 20mm of rain had spread from the South West to south-west Wales and eastern Northern Ireland overnight.
Western Power Distribution said there had been high voltage faults due to debris being blown around in Devon and Cornwall.
Teams of engineers worked through the night to try to fix the faults, and the company said it would also switch circuits to work around individual faults.
More than half a million households in the north-eastern US and the south-eastern Canada are still without electricity after last weekend’s severe ice storm.
Utility crews are working round-the-clock, but warn that some homes could be without power at least until Saturday.
In Toronto, 72,000 people were without electricity on Christmas Day, officials in Canada’s Ontario province said.
At least 27 deaths in the region have been linked to the storm.
Most of those were caused by apparent carbon monoxide poisoning as people used gas generators, charcoal stoves and other appliances to heat their homes in freezing temperatures.
In Toronto, 72,000 people were without electricity on Christmas Day
“I understand they want to keep warm, but you cannot do this. This is deadly,” Toronto Mayor Rob Ford warned earlier this week.
Other fatalities were caused by traffic accidents.
Elsewhere in Canada, tens of thousands of people are still without power in New Brunswick and Quebec, and hundreds in Nova Scotia.
In the US, states from Maine to Michigan have been affected by the adverse weather.
Travel between Toronto and Montreal, Ottawa and New York had been disrupted.
Environment Canada meteorologist David Phillips warned earlier this week that the ice would remain as temperatures stayed below freezing.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has said he has proof that Monday’s massive power cut in the capital Caracas and other cities was caused by “right-wing” saboteurs.
Appearing on state TV, Nicolas Maduro showed a picture of what looked like a cut conductor cable.
He said the saboteurs’ aim was to destabilize the country ahead of local elections scheduled for this weekend.
Caracas’ metro ground to a halt and people had to be led out of shops and offices – but power was later restored.
Government opponents say poor maintenance was the likely cause of the blackout.
Power cuts are common in Venezuela, especially in the inland states, but they rarely affect the capital.
Speaking on state TV, Nicolas Maduro said that “we always face these attacks by the right-wing fascists”.
Nicolas Maduro has said he has proof that massive power cut in Caracas and other cities was caused by “right-wing” saboteurs
“They wanted to make me, as president of the republic, decree a state of emergency and suspend the elections.
“Whoever made this criminal attack wanted to leave our Venezuela without electricity for 24 to 48 hours… thinking that would convince people not to continue with the revolution.”
Nicolas Maduro promised to give more details on Wednesday.
He earlier tweeted that the outage had been triggered in the same place as a blackout in September.
The power cut plunged Caracas into darkness after 20:00 on Monday as Nicolas Maduro was addressing the nation on television.
The blackouts did not affect Venezuela’s oil refineries, which are powered by separate generator plants.
Sometimes after the outage, Electricity Minister Jesse Chacon said power had been restored to most of Caracas. He said the blackout had originated in central Venezuela.
The opposition says the governments of President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have failed to maintain the power grid to meet growing demand, instead resorting to conspiracy theories to divert attention from mismanagement.
Correspondents said that while Caracas was in darkness, people could be heard banging pots – a frequent means of protest.
New Yorkers took to the streets last night as Con Ed began restoring power to lower Manhattan after repairing the East 14th Street subway station that exploded when Hurricane Sandy hit on Monday night.
Electricity began coming on to more than 65,000 customers in parts of the East Village, SoHo and the Lower East Side at around 6:00 p.m. while thousands of residents in Chelsea and the so-called Madison Network were able to switch on their lights again about an hour later.
People took to the streets cheering on Prince and Lafayette in Nolita as the lights finally flickered again after days of darkness.
Power was restored north to south between Canal Street and Broadway, and East to West between the East River and 14th street.
At 6:00 p.m. the Chelsea network went back up between the Hudson River and Fifth Avenue, and 31st Street on north and 15th street
The news comes as a huge relief to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been without power since Monday night.
Many of them had left the so-called Dark Zone below 39th street but there are still tens of thousands of people living in increasingly difficult conditions.
Con Edison let customers know the good news with a flurry of proud tweets on Friday evening.
Starting with the restoration of power for 65,000 in the East Village and the Lower East Side at around 5:45 p.m., the company then boasted at about 6:45 p.m.: “#ConEdison just restored power to 25,000 customers in the #Chelsea network.”
At around 7:00 p.m., Con Edison tweeted that another 8,000 customers in the #City Hall network were back on the grid – from Broadway to the East River and Canal Street to Frankfort.
This announcement quickly followed with the news that over 30,000 homes stretching from 31st to 14th Streets and Fifth Avenue to the East River were restored.
But Manhattan wasn’t the only borough the electricity company was concentrating on.
Con Ed restored power to lower Manhattan after repairing the East 14th Street subway station
As the announcements were coming thick and fast on the island, Con Edison tweeted just before 7:00 p.m. that more than 122,000 Brooklyn residents had electricity back up and running and more than 39,000 customers were rejoicing as they switched on their lights in the Bronx.
An additional 29,000 households in Queens were also powered up again before 7:00 p.m. and 85,000 in devastated Staten Island, for the first time since the Superstorm savaged New York.
The electricity company said things should be back to normal for most residents in these areas though it couldn’t guarantee that individual customers’ equipment had not been damaged in the storm, which would delay their return to power.
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in New York and 1.5 million in New Jersey were still without power on Friday, four days after Hurricane Sandy slammed into the U.S. East Coast, the states’ power companies said.
Most utility companies in the two states said it could take a week or longer to restore power to all customers in the wake of Sandy, the worst natural disaster to strike their customers.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo sent a letter Thursday to the CEOs of state power companies, saying he would “take appropriate action against those utilities and their management if they do not meet their obligations to New Yorkers in this time of crisis”.
“I recognize there are men and women in the field now working hard to restore service … but it is your job to provide them with adequate resources and support to get the job done in a timely and safe manner,” Andrew Cuomo said.
Con Edison serves more than 3 million customers in New York City and Westchester County.
In New Jersey, Public Service Enterprise Group Inc said about 700,000 customers were still out, down from 1.7 million. PSEG serves about 2.2 million customers in the state.
FirstEnergy Corp’s Jersey Central Power and Light utility reported more than 713,100 customers were still without power, down from more than 1 million affected by the storm. JCP&L serves about 1.2 million in New Jersey.
Across the U.S. Northeast power companies have restored electricity to more than half of the 8.48 million customers left without service, leaving nearly 3.6 million without service in 11 states Friday morning, federal data showed.
Con Edison said it expects to make significant progress restoring electricity to all customers over the next seven days.
In lower and mid-Manhattan, Con Edison has said it expected to restore power by Saturday, November 3.
But the company warned that more than 100 buildings that have had their power restored were still without electricity due to flooding in basements or damage to local equipment.
To date, Con Edison said its crews have restored electricity to more than 320,000 customers affected by Sandy.
As of 5:00 a.m. EDT on Friday, Con Edison said about 226,000 customers lacked service in Manhattan, 84,000 in Queens, 35,000 in Brooklyn, 54,000 in Staten Island, 31,000 in the Bronx and 140,000 in Westchester.
Elsewhere in New York, the Long Island Power Co (LIPA) said it still had about 529,800 customers without power, down from more than 900,000. LIPA serves about 1.1 million customers on Long Island.
Millions of New Yorkers will still be without power for another 10 days as city’s power supplier ConEd continues to fix overhead power wires.
Electricity is expected to be restored to the main island of Manhattan by Saturday, however, since the area is largely run by an underground power network that is easier to fix than the downed electrical lines.
While utility company Consolidated Edison, commonly known as ConEd, are on track to uphold their original plan of returning power to all of Manhattan island on either Friday or Saturday, they said that the outer boroughs will have to wait until November 10th or 11th for their power.
The delay in reaching the outer boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx was attributed to the difficulties of fixing or replacing the downed overhead lines.
Throughout the week, the company has been gradually restoring power to portions of the city, and has reached at least 2,000 people in lower Manhattan so far.
While helpful, that is only a sliver of the 227,000 homes and businesses in Manhattan that went dark Monday.
In order to avoid permanent damage from rising sea waters, the company preemptively took two underground electrical networks out of service and the latest restored power areas were a result of those networks being reactivated.
While that reactivation was relatively easy, the bigger problems came from a massive explosion at one of the ConEd power plants in Manhattan’s East Village.
The explosion came after the plant was overwhelmed by floodwater.
Millions of New Yorkers will still be without power for another 10 days as city’s power supplier ConEd continues to fix overhead power wires
Regardless, the East and West Villages, Financial District, Chelsea, Chinatown and the Lower East Side will be up and running by the weekend, Con Edison said.
The island’s wiring system is largely underground so workers have been able to asses and repair it faster than above ground wiring of the outer boroughs.
Outages in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island were not expected to be repaired for another week, the power company said.
For New Yorkers living in the vertical city, a loss of power means much more than spoiled cold cuts and frozen dinners.
Electricity is needed to pump water to upper floors. Many New Yorkers prepared for the storm by stocking up on bottled water. But without power, there’s no way to flush the toilet.
For others, the outage had graver consequences.
“I have several hundred dollars’ worth of insulin in the refrigerator,” said Joan Moore of New York’s Staten Island, who is diabetic.
There were encouraging acts of kindness, gestures made by the lucky ones with electricity.
“I have power and hot water. If anyone needs a shower or to charge some gadgets or just wants to bask in the beauty of artificial light, hit me up,” Rob Hart, who also lives on Staten Island, wrote on Facebook.
In New York City and along the New Jersey and Connecticut coasts, flooding knocked out substations and switching yards, the vertebrae of the electric distribution system.
Hurricane Sandy blacked out some of the nation’s most densely populated cities and suburbs, instantly taking away modern conveniences from Virginia to Massachusetts and as far west as the Great Lakes.
For power companies, the scale of the destruction was unmatched – more widespread than any blizzard or ice storm and worse than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“It’s unprecedented: fallen trees, debris, the roads, water, snow. It’s a little bit of everything,” said Brian Wolff, senior vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, a group that lobbies for utilities.
Initially, about 60 million people were without power in 8.2 million homes and businesses. By Wednesday night, that number had fallen to roughly 44 million people in 6 million households and businesses.
Even as power slowly returned to some pockets, a new headache emerged: Backup batteries and generators running cellphone towers were running out of juice. One out of every five towers was down, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
New Yorker Vildia Samaniego traveled four miles uptown to a bar, the Blarney Stone, to watch the Boston Celtics play the Miami Heat.
“I really needed to watch the basketball game,” she laughed.
“The place was packed. It’s amazing how much you miss television.”
The unseasonable snowstorm which hit the US East Coast, with some areas of Massachusetts seeing more than 27 inches (68 cm) of snow, killed at least nine people and left three million houses without power.
Tv footages show snow in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vermont while in New York, Occupy Wall Street protesters said they were not deterred by the weather.
According to authorities, at least nine people have died in snow-related accidents and more than three million homes have lost their electricity supply from Maryland to Massachusetts with some residents left without power for several days.
The snowfall had worsened as it moved north, with states of emergency declared in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of New York.
It was reported that communities in western Massachusetts were among the hardest hit.
Nantucket in Massachusetts experienced wind speeds of 69mph (111km/h), a National Weather Service (NWS) statement said.
The unseasonable snowstorm which hit the US East Coast, with some areas of Massachusetts seeing more than 27 inches of snow, killed at least nine people and left three million houses without power
Four people were killed in two separate crashes on an icy road in Philadelphia, while falling snow killed an 84-year-old man in Temple, Pennsylvania.
Traffic accidents killed one person in Colchester, Connecticut, a 54-year-old New York woman, and a person in New Jersey.
In Springfield, Massachusetts, a man died when he touched a protective rail surrounding downed power lines.
Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy said over 750,000 people were without electricity in his state and that the effects of the storm would still be felt after the snowfall stopped.
“If you are without power, you should expect to be without power for a prolonged period of time,” CBS News quoted Governor Dannel P. Malloy as saying.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s house was one of the 600,000 suffering power cuts in the state.
West Milford, New Jersey, about 45 miles (70km) north-west of New York, saw 19 inches of snowfall, and Hillsboro, New Hampshire, saw 21.5 inches.
In New York City, a new record for October snowfall was set when 1.3 inches fell in Central Park.
Most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park saw out the storm.
On Sunday, passengers were stranded for more than seven hours on one JetBlue flight in Hartford, Connecticut.
On Saturday, flights were delayed at Newark airport in New Jersey, which was being lashed by heavy rains and winds.
Amtrak reported massive disruption to train services, including a 13-hour delay for passengers on one train in central Massachusetts.
High pressure over south-eastern Canada had fed cold air south and into moisture from the North Carolina coast.
In New England it is usual for measurable snow to fall in early December.
National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson said temperatures could return to normal by the middle of next week.
The unusual October snowstorm in North East US sent trees and branches crashing down on electrical wires and equipment across the states.
In Connecticut, all of the 149 cities and towns served by Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) were affected by the snowstorm.
It was reported that about 770,000 CL&P customers were without power earlier this morning due to the snowstorm, surpassing the peak number of outages caused by Tropical Storm Irene two months ago.
Jeff Butler, president and COO at CL&P said:
“This will not be a <<quick fix>>…this may take more than a week to restore all of our customers. There are reports of trees down practically everywhere.”
“To help with damage assessments, we’re using two helicopters. Our other priorities today are handling emergency situations and working in partnership with the towns to clear the blocked roads.”
About 770,000 CL&P customers were without power due to the snowstorm, surpassing the peak number of outages caused by Tropical Storm Irene two months ago
The snowstorm effects differ from Tropical Storm Irene’s in that the storm has caused significant damage to transmission lines, which are the lines that take power from electric generating plants and feeds it to the distribution grid that serves local homes and businesses.
CL&P is scheduling crews to work around the clock until restoration efforts are complete. During a multi-day restoration such as this, approximately 75% of crews will begin their shifts around 07:00 a.m. in order to maximize daylight hours and be most productive.
The remaining 25% of CL&P crews will begin their shifts around 03:00 p.m. and will work through the night.
“The safety of our employees, contractors and our customers is of our utmost concern and we want to make sure everyone working on this restoration has appropriate time to rest between shifts,” added Jeff Butler.
For their safety, CL&P also reminds customers to stay at least 10 feet away from all wires. Assume any downed, hanging or burning power lines are live and dangerous.
“If a power line falls on your vehicle while you’re inside, stay there. Don’t touch anything outside the vehicle and wait for emergency crews. Call 9-1-1 immediately with any emergency condition,” advised CL&P.
“To report outages or check the status of an outage, visit cl-p.com or call 800-286-2000. Our automated phone and online systems can rapidly process your report and help us speed restoration efforts. For helpful tips and news updates, go to our website at cl-p.com, follow us on Twitter @CTLightandPower and like us at Facebook.com/CTLightandPower. You can also get updates on outages in your town by texting “outage” and your zip code to 24612 (texting fees may apply),” CL&P also said.
CL&P has been part of everyday life in Connecticut for more than 100 years, providing safe and reliable electric service to homes, neighborhoods and businesses. With 1.2 million customers in 149 cities and towns, CL&P is improving the environments you live in, by offering programs in energy conservation, economic development and environmental stewardship. CL&P is a Northeast Utilities company (NYSE: NU). For more information, please visit www.cl-p.com , like us on Facebook at facebook.com/CTLightandPower and follow us on Twitter @CTLightandPower.
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