Cyclone winds cut power to millions in São Paulo, again

São Paulo’s vast metropolitan region — home to roughly 10% of Brazil’s population — was hit on Thursday by yet another massively disruptive blackout, after violent winds tied to an extratropical cyclone spinning off the country’s southern coast ripped through the city.

By mid-afternoon, Enel, the privately owned power distributor that serves the metropolitan area, had reported roughly 2.2 million customer units without electricity, including 1.4 million in the city itself, with the tally at times covering more than one-third of the company’s service area. The Civil Defense recorded wind gusts of 98 kilometers per hour in parts of São Paulo, and by noon it had received 514 reports of fallen trees.

Power failures quickly spilled over into other essential services.