Power is back in most of Brazil after widespread and hours-long blackout

Atlantica Avenue at Copabana beach in Rio de Janeiro is seen during a blackout.(Ap Photo/Felipe Dana)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Power was back in most of Brazil on Tuesday afternoon, after a major blackout left much of the north and northeast regions without any electricity for nearly six hours, the country's energy ministry said.

Small adjustments still had to be made in some cities, the ministry said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The outage occurred at 8:30 a.m. and also disrupted power supplies in the southeast. At least 19 of Brazil's states and the capital city of Brasilia were affected by the outage, according to the online news site G1.

The outage also affected public transportation. Passengers had to evacuate subway lines in major cities, including Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Salvador. Traffic lights were out in other cities.

The cause of the blackout was under investigation.