A massive power failure has blacked out Brazil’s two largest cities and other parts of the country, leaving millions of people without electricity and causing widespread traffic chaos.
The outage on Tuesday evening began when the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, which supplies much of the country’s electricity, suddenly went offline plunging parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other Brazilian cities into darkness.
The cause of the failure has not been established, although power to some areas of the country had been restored as of late Tuesday, more than two hours after the outage hit.
The blackout had triggered a huge police mobilisation amid fears of an opportunistic crime wave.
Parts of neighbouring Paraguay, which also receives power from the Itaipu dam, were also affected.
More on Al Jazeera.
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