Power cuts have struck several countries in western Europe, leaving millions of people without electricity.

 

Power companies said the outage started in Germany with a surge in demand prompted by cold weather, and then spread to other parts of Europe.

Some five million people in France lost power, mainly in the east of the country and including parts of Paris.

"We weren't very far from a European blackout," a senior director with French power company RTE said.

Pierre Bornard told the French news agency AFP that two German high-voltage transmission lines failed, causing problems across western Europe.

This triggered a "house of cards" style system breakdown, he said.

Automatic security systems cut supplies to some customers to avoid a complete blackout.

Italy, Belgium and Spain were also affected by the power cuts.

Most electricity supplies were restored within two hours of the outage, and so far no injuries or accidents have been reported.

Fire brigades in France said they had to answer several calls from people stuck in lifts. High speed rail links were also disrupted.

 

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I was just watching "Wetten, dass..?" with some of my friends when suddenly a few minutes after 10pm the lamps in the room played crazy. We first thought it's nothing special but then the blackout hits the region of Bremen for 2 minutes. Our first thought was a blown fuse but we also remarked that our neighbours didn't have electricity as well. :D But somehow it was quite cool... We had a lot of fun. Unfortunately a few days after Halloween...

Oh it also reached Bremen?

 

It didn't affect us.....but I heard that it affected most parts of Nordrhein-Westfalen...

Oh it also reached Bremen?

 

It didn't affect us.....but I heard that it affected most parts of Nordrhein-Westfalen...

 

Not my part.:smug:

Yeah, I was also surprised, because today in the news they said that mostly parts of Northrhine Westfalia and Berlin/Brandenburg were affected. They didn't say anything about North Germany. Ok, it was only 2 minutes but I remember that after the electricity came back TV channels weren't available for at least 5 more minutes. We could receive ZDF exactly when Gottschalk was singing together with the Scissor Sisters. :P

Yeah' date=' I was also surprised, because today in the news they said that mostly parts of Northrhine Westfalia and Berlin/Brandenburg were affected. They didn't say anything about North Germany. Ok, it was only 2 minutes but I remember that after the electricity came back TV channels weren't available for at least 5 more minutes. We could receive ZDF exactly when Gottschalk was singing together with the Scissor Sisters. :P[/quote']

 

That's sounds truly horrible!! I bet you wished the TV had stayed OFF!!:P

Power has been cut in the streets around mine, but not mine!

Neither in the north-east of France, but maybe in germany near the French border

Power has been cut in the streets around mine' date=' but not mine![/quote']

 

Wow! You don't come here much, do you??!!:stunned:

Reason could be my b-day- we needed a little bit too much power, we had also a short strike but only in my area not in Berlin and the police in Potsdam had also no current for their computers *thx god nothing happened:laugh3: * best solution: partying with self-made music---- noise............:P

Didn't affect me.

 

Besides if we don't receive electricity for more than 20 seconds, the generator kicks in which has enough fuel to last 6 hours at full output.

A few days after the blackout I have a different opinion to this disaster...

 

It's an unbounded cheekiness that E.on (gas- and electricity provider) isn't able to have a solid electricity network, even if they have to switch-off a power supply line, because the big cruise ship was on it's way from Papenburg to the North Sea.

 

The prices were going up here between the last two years like no one ever thought it would happen. One year ago when a heavy blizzard rocked parts of Lower Saxony and the Münsterland, the whole mains supply collapsed, because E.on and other providers didn't maintain the big high tension lines. Scandalous...