Blackout in London Causes Mess Agencies

News, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

LONDON, 29 August 2003 — Power went out in parts of London and southeast England yesterday, causing serious disruptions on the London Underground and some train lines.

EDF Energy, which handles some power transmission for London, said electricity had gone out around 6:20 p.m. and come back on at 7 p.m. The outages appeared to be confined to south London and Kent, a county southeast of the city.

A spokesman for the Underground said 60 percent of the subway system had been brought to a halt at the height of the evening rush hour, including the majority of services in central London.

Workers were evacuating affected trains and stations. News reports said many passengers were stuck underground, but no accidents or injuries were immediately reported on the train or subway lines.

Although the power cut lasted only 40 minutes the capital was hit by transport disruption which officials warned would last hours before normal service was resumed. Police said half the traffic lights in south London were knocked out by the cuts.

Network Rail said hundreds of trains and hundreds of thousands of commuters had been affected on the tracks it operates.

“All the services are at a standstill in south London and the south east. There was a complete power failure to all trains and signals out of and into all major London stations.” EDF spokesman Gareth Wynn said the problem originated in two high-voltage lines belonging to the national power grid that help supply the Wimbledon area of southeast London.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

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