Brazil president orders probe of blackout

 Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday ordered an investigation into why more than half the country, including the major cities and industrial center, lost electricity for several hours Tuesday night.

All of neighboring Paraguay also lost power, but only for about 15 minutes.

The blackout, which the Brazilian energy ministry said affected 18 of the country’s 26 states and brought chaos to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, the capital, raises doubts about the reliability of the country’s infrastructure a little more than a month after Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

When the power went out, thousands of commuters were stranded on trains. There were widespread reports of road accidents as street lighting and traffic lights failed, and of robberies in bars and restaurants and other opportunistic street crime.

The blackout began about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday and lasted until about 2:45 a.m. on Wednesday in Sao Paulo, although power was restored gradually in some places before midnight.

The Associated Press reported that government officials said storms took down power lines and towers, causing a domino effect that rippled across the region.

Opposition politicians were quick to blame the blackout on a lack of investment in Brazil’s energy sector, where capacity has struggled to keep pace with demand. In 2001 and 2002 the government introduced electricity rationing after a combination of poor management and low rainfall — Brazil gets about 85 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power — resulted in shortages.

There was no suggestion Wednesday that this week’s blackout was caused by a lack of generating capacity, which the government has sought to increase by auctioning concessions to develop alternative-energy projects such as thermal power stations. More auctions are due to take place this month.

But the incident will almost certainly renew calls for greater spending on infrastructure.