Moscow hit by major power outage

Just as an aside.....if this article was written by a British National, I would either be very surprised, or say that the journalist had lived for a long period of time in the USA.
The word "outage" is never used in Britain. Power cut, power failure, electricity failure etc...yes, but outage?....no.

The reason I mention this is that, not being used to seeing the word, my brain immediately read it as "outrage".
"Moscow hit by major power outrage"...had me worried for a minute. I thought that some dastardly political manaouvres were afoot!

Re: Moscow hit by major power outage
My own observations (together with some info from the news):

The city is half paralyzed from approximately 11a.m. Moscow time. South, East and Centre of the city have no electricity at all. (Fortunately I live and work in the Western part of Moscow.) Most offices and enterprises do not work. Public transport is seriously disturbed: Tramlines and trolleybuses do not function, buses are overcrowded. There are traffic jams everywhere because street lights are off. 5 lines of the Metro have been stopped. The media report that 43 trains were caught in the tunnels of the underground and around 20,000 passengers needed evacuation. (1,500 more people were entrapped in lifts).

It has been reported that in addition to Moscow region (especially south-east of the city) other territories were also affected: Tula region has almost no electricity and there are power cuts in Riazan and Kaluga regions (all three are to the South of Moscow).

In many houses water supply have been cut off due to the failures of electric water pumps. There are problems with phones and the Internet even in the areas that did not experience direct impact of the power failure. After dialing one can reach almost a random number. Many popular Russian web sites do not respond. Mobile phones function depending on the operator: some of them work, some do not.

The power substation, which is reportedly to blame for the events, appears to have been constructed in 1963. I wonder if it has ever been upgraded?

It seems that all modern cities are very vulnerable to failures of electricity. If somebody wanted to attack power stations and transmission lines the effect on the economy and the whole life would be enormous. If I am not mistaken this was exactly what NATO air forces did in Yugoslavia at the final stage of the conflict over Kosovo. Finally Yugoslavia surrendered though their army was practically intact.

Or did they just want to use a catchy title?

SerSo, thank you for posting your comments on the power failure. Please keep us informed when you get a chance to.

I too am thankful...we really are starved for information about Russia.

Re: Moscow hit by major power outage
It has been reported today that the power supply was almost restored. As far as I know all the Metro stations in Moscow are open today though some tram and trolleybus lines in the South of the city did not function this morning. Many houses there still lack electricity.

As to the Northern and Western parts of the city, this yesterdays' major power failure could be absolutely unnoticed there. The only problems that affected these parts of Moscow were those with limited access to certain servers in the Internet as well as difficulties in connecting to the other city districts. But people who live or work in the South-East had a really difficult day yesterday. Many were scared when everything stopped abruptly and simultaneously: electricity, water supply, telephones, transport etc. Without knowing what was going on one could think whatever they could imagine.