Major blackouts in Europe, Americas

CHRONOLOGY-Major blackouts in Europe, Americas

LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - Electricity was suddenly cut off to swathes of Russia's capital on Wednesday bringing large sections of the public transport system, including underground train services, to a halt.

Following is a brief chronology of some major outages to strike Europe and the North American power grid.

Nov 9-10, 1965 - "The Great Blackout": power failure knocks out electricity in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New England and parts of Ontario, Canada, leaving estimated 30 million people in dark for up to 13 hours. Cause is traced to failure of high voltage line at Niagara, New York power station.

Aug 13-14, 1977 - Major transmission line fails on hot summer night, plunging New York City into darkness and triggering widespread looting in several neighbourhoods that causes millions of dollars in damage.

Aug 10, 1996 - Major U.S. high voltage line fails on one of year's hottest days, knocking out electricity to about 15 million people in seven states across western U.S. power grid.

Jan 1998 - Slow-moving ice storm pelts Ontario and Quebec, upstate New York state and New England, snapping transmission lines and toppling 1,000 high-voltage towers. About three million people lose electricity, many for up to a month.

2001 - Series of rolling blackouts hit California at height of state's energy crisis, ordered by grid operators to avoid system collapse when supplies ran dangerously low.

2003:

Aug 14 - Power goes out across much of northeastern United States and parts of Canada, hitting major cities such as New York, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland and Ottawa. Utilities scramble to restore service and find cause of outage, which U.S. power officials call worst ever to strike grid.

Aug 28 - Huge blackout knocks out a fifth of London's power for a half hour during evening rush hour in what British grid calls its worst failure in more than 10 years. Electricity network operator blames undersized fuse.

Sept 23 - Broad power blackout strikes southern Sweden and eastern Denmark, crippling industry, airports, trains and bridges. Outage may have hit up to five million consumers, including one to two million in Sweden and between two and three million in Denmark, officials estimate.

Sept 28 - Power cut cripples most of Italy in one of its worst blackouts. Only island of Sardinia and small pockets of mainland escape outage, which authorities blame on breakdown of electricity lines from France and Switzerland hit by storms.

Oct 29 - A blackout strikes the popular Brazilian tourist destination of Florianopolis which lasts two days and which led authorities to declare a state of emergency.

Nov 7 - Most of Chile loses power in a major blackout, snarling rush hour traffic in the capital. The country's central grid goes down.

2004:

July 12 - A power blackout strikes Athens in the worst outage for a decade, leaving the Greek capital and large parts of southern Greece without electricity for hours during a mini heatwave. Trains, buses and the metro were brought to a standstill and hundreds of people were stranded in lifts.

2005:

Jan 23 - A swathe of downtown Toronto loses power for about 11 hours after a flooded water main forced the shutdown of an electrical station. Several major hospitals and hotels were relying on emergency power generators.

May 25 - Following an explosion at a electricity substation, power is suddenly cut off to parts of Moscow bringing large sections of the public transport system, including underground train services, to a halt.>