Stuttgart in Germany hit by brief power outage caused by voltage drop

Berlin/Stuttgart, 5 February (CTK correspondent) - The city of Stuttgart in southwestern Germany was hit by a brief power outage this morning. The cause was a brief voltage drop in the grid, according to network operator Stuttgart Netze. Power supplies are now stable again. Stuttgart, the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg, has a population of 600.000.

The brief power outage caused some traffic lights in the city, including at major intersections, to stop working. Police therefore had to direct traffic in many places. The outage also brought Stadtbahn trams to a halt for several minutes. The fire brigade told DPA that it had no reports of fires, but was itself affected by the outage. Regional and S-Bahn commuter trains continued to operate.

Although the incident ultimately turned out to be a technical fault, it brought to mind the power outage in Berlin in January. An arson attack there left 100.000 people without electricity and heat for four days. It was the longest power outage in the capital’s post-war history.