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London Commuters Crippled by Rush Hour Blackout
Aired August 28, 2003 - 15:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, London unplugged, or back to the blackout. If you've been watching CNN, you know big parts of the British capital lost power tonight just in the thick of the evening commute.
CNN's Liz George enlightens us -- Liz.
LIZ GEORGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. That was about two hours ago, and of course the evening commute here on a Thursday night extremely busy.
And that was what was majorly affected. It was the Underground service. You can see behind me lights, so the power is beginning to come back on. But, of course, at any one time during this commute there's around about 4 million people traveling on that Underground. So that -- those are the people that really were affected by this power outage.
Now, the mayor of London estimates that about 250,000 people were probably trapped on those Underground stations when the actual power cut hit. Some of those people are probably still down there because the transport police have to clear the lines before trains can start moving again. And moving, shunting into the next station and letting people actually off those underground trains.
But London itself is absolutely packed with people who can't get into the Undergrounds at the moment, who are being thrown out of the stations and brought off those trains right now and thronging the streets, all of them on their mobile phones, all of them desperate to try and get home. And the buses, the use failsafe of Londoners, of course, ground to a standstill as well at the moment as well, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Liz George from London, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 28, 2003 - 15:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, London unplugged, or back to the blackout. If you've been watching CNN, you know big parts of the British capital lost power tonight just in the thick of the evening commute.
CNN's Liz George enlightens us -- Liz.
LIZ GEORGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. That was about two hours ago, and of course the evening commute here on a Thursday night extremely busy.
And that was what was majorly affected. It was the Underground service. You can see behind me lights, so the power is beginning to come back on. But, of course, at any one time during this commute there's around about 4 million people traveling on that Underground. So that -- those are the people that really were affected by this power outage.
Now, the mayor of London estimates that about 250,000 people were probably trapped on those Underground stations when the actual power cut hit. Some of those people are probably still down there because the transport police have to clear the lines before trains can start moving again. And moving, shunting into the next station and letting people actually off those underground trains.
But London itself is absolutely packed with people who can't get into the Undergrounds at the moment, who are being thrown out of the stations and brought off those trains right now and thronging the streets, all of them on their mobile phones, all of them desperate to try and get home. And the buses, the use failsafe of Londoners, of course, ground to a standstill as well at the moment as well, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Liz George from London, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
