Much of Armenia experiences brief power failure

Most of Armenia, including the capital city, lost electrical power for brief periods Saturday when connections to Iran were disrupted, an official said. A spokeswoman for the Energy Ministry, Lusine Arutyunyan, said on ArmNews TV that the power failure was about 10 minutes long, RIA Novosti reported. She said the capital, Yerevan, and much of the rest of the country were affected. The Armenian Nuclear Power plant is shut down every year for almost two months for repair and refueling. During the interval, which began this year on Sept. 23, Iran supplies enough electrical power to its neighbor to make up for the 40 percent normally generated by the nuclear plant. Arutyunyan said the blackout problem was caused by a drop in frequency in the connection with Iran.