Italy which produces less than sixty percent of it's own electricity was plunged into darkness for up to eight hours Sunday morning when power lines supplying electricity from across the borders came down and a domino effect shut down every power station in the country.
The origin of the countries biggest blackout, which ironically happened during the "White Nights" festival in the capital Rome, has now been identified as a tree falling on power lines carrying electricity from Switzerland to Italy.
Once the Swiss lines had fallen, power lines from France (which runs three nuclear power stations full time just to meet Italian demands) were unable to meet the 6000 megawatts of lost power and were automatically cut off for security reasons.
This provoked the cut-off of Austrian and Slovakian power lines.
The lack of power within the Italian grid by this point was so low that Italy's own power stations shut down.
After a thorough investigation the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday laid the blame for the 8-hour national blackout squarely on the shoulders of everyone else.
"It's the fault of the Swiss and the French and the Austrians and the Slovakians." Berlusconi told the Italian parliament.
"Our only involvement in this whole mess was the Italian tree which fell on the Swiss power lines... and that tree was almost surely planted by the previous government."
Italy which produces less than sixty percent of it's own electricity was plunged into darkness for up to eight hours Sunday morning when power lines supplying electricity from across the borders came down and a domino effect shut down every power station in the country.