Blackout in Tokyo hits 580,000 households, affecting trains, gov't offices

An extensive blackout struck Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon, affecting as many as 350,000 households, some government offices and halting trains in the capital.

I vividly remember that we used to have major blackouts in Tokyo in the postwar period. But in this modern era, it's like an incredibly rare event. Good thing there were no injuries from the incident. We have to wait and see how it shakes out.

I only live a few minutes from here, I can't believe we didn't lose power.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO),

Says it all........

Am watching this live on TV. Sure was a lot of black smoke billowing out of that place. It seems to be under control as of now (6 p.m. Wednesday). Lots of wiring down there underground ... and guess lots of it burned ... thus the black smoke.

Sabotage for sure! Let's face it, TEPCO is far from the most popular corporation in Japan. Even I get a bitter taste in my mouth every month when I pay my electricity bill

TEPCO, eh? Maybe Shimizu was at the wheel again. And these guys want to restart all the nuclear plants?

Hmm, where were the affected areas? I didn't see any disruption in Shibuya

It was very patchy. The power went off at my workplace but the power was on across the street. Cycling home I noticed the same pattern. On here, off there.

As others have noted, a wide area power failure like this is exceedingly rare in Tokyo. In fact it's the only one I can recall in nearly a quarter century spent in the Tokyo area. Given the tangle of wires on power poles in much of Tokyo, it is actually surprising that outages are so uncommon.

As a matter of fact the energy market has been given free as far as I know, so why not change....

There was no failure of supply. The failure was in the distribution network. Changing suppliers will not protect you from failures in the distribution network. Your juice will still come down the existing set of wires. If those wires get fried or go down in a storm your power will go off whether you are buying it from Tepco or some other company.

Hmm, where were the affected areas? I didn't see any disruption in Shibuya

My Oedo Line train was delayed by about 15 min at around 3:45

2020 Olympics...let's pray together.

To think that 10 years ago everyone thought the Japanese were probably the best in preparing for the unforseeable future; well, accidents happen but work for 2020 just got a hell of a lot more tedious.

Saitama?

As a matter of fact the energy market has been given free as far as I know, so why not change....

Side effect may be that if everyone leaves tepco your taxes may raise since there's still a bit of cleaning up to do in fukushima

These events are likely to become more common in Japan.

Says it all........

No it doesn't