Some 160,000 homes are deprived of electricity this Saturday in southeastern France for an electricity breakdown caused by the fire in a substation of the Cannes region and the cut in a high voltage line, as indicated by the RTE manager.
The blackout affected several cities in the west of the Department of Maritime Alps, including Cannes, which tonight has the closing ceremony of their famous film festival, but the organizers indicated that they have electrogen teams that guarantee their development even if the blackout continues.
Electric transport network (RTE) indicated that their equipment is working to restore the current as soon as possible.
He added that during the early morning, about 2.45 hours (00.45 GMT), there was a fire in an electrical substation in the Cannes region, which forced the flow to turn off for several minutes and, although it was restored, it caused a weakening of the network.
About 10.00 (8.00 GMT) a post fell on a high voltage line at a different point, which caused the current blackout, Rte added.
The closing ceremony and the delivery of the Golden Palm of the Cannes Festival will take place at 18:40 local time (16:40 GMT) thanks to the fact that the Palais des Festival has generators that can serve throughout the day.
The gala will take place in the Grand Thèâtre Lumiere, the largest room of the Palais, main headquarters of the Cannes Festival, and where all important projections and ceremonies are usually held. And you can access it through the famous red carpet.
While in the Festival building everything takes place with almost total normality -with the exception of some brief interruptions in the film projections -, in the surroundings there are no light and people have gone to the streets trying to find out what happens.
At the moment normality reigns in Cannes, Done everyone has taken the incident calmly, even in the train station, where there are delays but for the moment no canceled train, as an SNCF representative, the National Train Company in France explained to Efe.
Of course, the information panels do not work and the information is written in Pizarras, where the members of the company are updating the available information.
