Rome, Sept 29: Several parts of Italy were still without electricity early today well over a day after the worst blackout in the country's history, as debate raged over who was to blame for the devastating power failure. The power cut paralysed the country for several hours since the lights first went out early yesterday morning, stranding thousands on trains and escalators, and claiming the lives of at least three elderly people.
By today morning, electricity had been restored to most parts of the country with teams working overnight to restore normalcy to the areas still deprived of power. The company in charge of Italy's power supply, GRTN, said there was no danger of any power cuts for tomorrow and no need for local distributors to prepare back-up measures.
As for today, the company said there would be no further power outages through to 1000 GMT (1530 IST), but inhabitants of several regions in the south woke up today to find that power had yet been restored to their areas. The civil protection services said electricity had not returned to parts of the provinces of Enna and Caltanissetta on the Mediterranean Island of Sicily as well as the southeastern Puglia region due to problems on the local distribution network.
The authorities have promised that there should be no further power cuts for the bulk of the country today morning, even though "programmed" electricity interruptions could take place later in the day.
Only the Island of Sardinia was unaffected by the cut, which left about 50 million of Italy's 57 million inhabitants without power from about 3:30 am (0700 IST) yesterday and up to 30,000 passengers trapped in trains. Bureau Report