But the overall conditions that knocked out power to at least 7 million people cannot be fundamentally corrected before the Aug. 13-29 Games

. . .

A detailed study of the blackout is not yet available. But Lekatsas and others offered a general picture: a major system malfunction occurred as it tried to compensate for a crippled generating station near Athens. Millions of air conditioners were in use as afternoon temperatures reached 104 Fahrenheit.

The overburdened lines created a domino-effect shutdown over southern Greece and many islands. Power was mostly restored to Athens after three hours, but the lights did not return to some areas for seven hours.

TBO

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2004