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Brazil suffers widespread blackout

A government commission has been set up to investigate the incident

RIO DE JANEIRO, August 15. /TASS/. Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy said a widespread power outage occurred on Tuesday morning, leaving people without electricity.

"As a result of the incident, the National System Operator stopped the transmission of 16,000 megawatts of electricity in its grid," the ministry said.

Subsequently, the power supply was partially restored by redistributing 6,000 megawatts from elsewhere. Power supply has now been fully resumed in the south and southeast of the country, as well as in most eastern and central regions. According to CNN Brasil television, power supply fell by 83% across the country's northern region, which includes seven states, by almost 50% in the nine northeastern states, and almost 20% in four southeastern states.

A government commission has been set up to investigate the incident.

According to the Globo newspaper, this is the largest power outage since 2009, when lights went off for 60 million people in 18 states after the transmission of 28,000 megawatts of electricity suffered a disruption. Damage done to the state of Rio de Janeiro alone then was valued at about 1 billion reals ($500 million at the exchange rate at the time).

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