Asia, Power Outage | featured news

This week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear plant may have been caused by a rat Masayuki Ono, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, says a 15-centimeter (6-inch) rat was found dead Wednesday near a switchboard. He says the rat may be linked to the power failure, but that more investigation is needed to be sure.

A decade ago, Chandrakant's fishing village in India's financial capital Mumbai lived mostly by candlelight. What people did not have - electricity - they stole. A decade ago, Chandrakant's fishing village in India's financial capital Mumbai lived mostly by candlelight. What people did not have - electricity - they stole. It was easy enough to hook onto the two thin power lines that passed over the village and take a little for themselves.

Northern India's power grid crashed Monday, halting trains, forcing hospitals and airports onto backup power and providing a dark reminder of the nation's inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become an economic power....

Typhoon Melor was gathering strength as it traveled along Japan's southern coast with sustained winds of about 100 miles per hour, causing power outages and disrupting air and train travel.