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AMERICAN MORNING

Italy's Blackout

Aired September 29, 2003 - 08:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now to Europe, where the electricity is back on in Italy. Investigations under way into the country's worst power failure since the Second World War. Power was lost to nearly the entire country.
Alessio Vinci live in Rome, and right now they are looking to France to find the potential for this problem.

Alessio, hello.

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Bill.

France, Switzerland, Austria, anybody to put the blame on. The Italian officials are saying they are not responsible for the fact that 57 million people, almost the entire country, with the exception of the big island of Sardinia and some other small islands, lost their power yesterday. As a result of the power cut, four people died. Two elderly women fell in their apartment, in the stairways of their apartment in the darkness. One was killed by a fire that was lit by candle that she had lit for making some light. And one more person died in a traffic accident where the traffic light was not working.

Now power officials are telling us that power has been restored throughout the country, with small pockets still coming up. But they are saying that the grid will work normally again as of tomorrow, Tuesday. They also expect that today maybe some regions of Italy, some portions of Italy may expect some power cuts, but so far, none of that has been experienced.

Now of course the question now is what happened and why. Preliminary investigation points towards Switzerland, because they're saying that there, a tree tipped the power line that brings electricity to Italy. At the same time, simultaneously two lines bringing energy from France to Italy also went down. Italian officials are saying that the simultaneous effect of those lines going down in just four seconds cut the line throughout the country, giving Italian officials very little time to react. The French and the Swiss officials refuse the blame, because they're saying that they have restored power almost immediately and put the blame on the Italians, who are saying they were slow to react -- Bill.

HEMMER: Got it, Alessio. Hang in there and keep us posted. We're going to need a map to follow the blame game there in Europe today.

Many thanks, Alessio, live in Rome.

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