Brazilian blackout

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A malfunction at a large dam caused widespread blackouts across the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Brasilia.

The infrastructure failure comes as Brazilian officials try to reassure World Cup and Olympics leaders they made the right choice in selecting the South American city for the world's two major sporting events. The World Cup is scheduled for Brazil in 2014 with the Summer Olympics set for Rio in 2016.

The BBC reported localized blackouts are not unusual in Brazil's cities but the scope of Tuesday night's outage was much larger, also affecting sections of neighboring Paraguay. Power was restored after about two hours.

It is thought a storm disrupted power generation from the Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the Parana River, which marks the border of Brazil and Paraguay. Itaipu supplies about 20 percent of Brazil's electricity.

CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday broadcast a report computer hackers were the likely culprits in Brazilian power outages in 2005 and 2007.