London blackout a 'freak event'
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The power failure at the height of the evening rush hour paralyzed London.
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Outage halts trains, creating rush hour chaos (August 28)
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LONDON, England -- A blackout that brought London's transport system to a halt and left half-a-million commuters stranded is being described as out of the ordinary by the company that runs Britain's main power lines.
National Grid Transco's Chief Operating Officer Mark Fairbairn told BBC Radio Thursday's blackout was a freak event and was caused by two faults happening in quick succession.
"The unusual event last night was two faults occurring so quickly together," he said, denying it was caused by under funding of the system.
"It's got nothing to do with under-investment. The levels of investment made by the national grid are four or five times higher than the investments made pre-privatization."
National Grid is the privatized company that runs Britain's main power lines.
The power failure at the height of the evening rush hour paralyzed London and left 500,000 commuters without transport home.
It also provoked the fury of London Mayor Ken Livingstone who called the National Grid power cut "an absolute disgrace."
Livingstone said Friday the outage could have had "horrifying consequences" had it happened during the heat wave earlier in August instead of on a cold, rainy evening. (Full story)
Electricity was restored to London within an hour of the outage.
London Underground and mainline rail services were badly affected but by Friday morning, most over ground and underground trains were running normally again.
