Power back to Brazil after mass blackout

Brazil:  Power has been largely restored to much of southern Brazil after a four-hour blackout plunged the country's biggest cities into darkness.

According to officials and witnesses, the blackout triggered a crime alert in the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where authorities launched a major police mobilization.

The power outage originated in the Itai-pu hydroelectric plant that straddles the border between Brazil and Paraguay and generates much of the electricity used by the two nations, Energy Minister Edison Lobao said.

The blackout which hit at 10:15 pm Tuesday (0015 GMT Wednesday) left at least 40 million people in about 800 cities in the dark.

Large parts of neighboring Paraguay were also plunged into darkness which lasted for only 20 minutes.

The exact cause of the power outage is yet to be determined.