A nationwide power cut plunged Italy into darkness early yesterday in one of the country?s worst blackouts, which authorities blamed on the breakdown of electricity lines from France and Switzerland hit by storms.

The early morning blackout hit virtually the entire country, stranding more than 30 000 train passengers, forcing airlines to cancel flights and leaving people sleeping on the streets.

There were no reports of fatalities directly linked to the fourth major power breakdown in Western economies in two months. It was Italy?s worst blackout in nearly a decade and hit all of the country except the island of Sardinia and some small pockets of the mainland, officials said.

Eight hours after the power went out, huge sections of the country were still without electricity including Rome, where stranded subway and train passengers slept on the ground.

?It?s chaos, and until the electricity comes back on it will continue to be chaos,? said policeman Fabio Bragazzi, 21, at Rome?s main Termini train station.

Italian authorities said the near simultaneous failure of power lines from neighbouring Switzerland and France, which provides about one fifth of Italy?s electricity at night, triggered the cut at 3:20 a.m.

?It was an exceptional, extraordinary event,? Andrea Bollino, chairman of national grid operator GRTN, told Reuters. ?There was a problem with the connection in Switzerland which then caused a problem with our connection with France and then affected Italy,? Bollino said.

French authorities said severe storms apparently cut two 400 000 volt lines connecting the two countries. Yesterday morning the two lines were reconnected, restoring power to large parts of northern and central Italy.

?The origin of the main failure is not French. There was a failure between Switzerland and Italy around 3 a.m.,? said Patrick Larradet, a spokesman for French grid operator RTE. He said two French power lines came down shortly afterwards, around 3:25 a.m. -- most likely due to storms in the region -- but electricity was soon restored.

Power was expected to be up in the rest of Italy by yesterday afternoon, Industry Minister Antonio Marzano said.

The outage brought an early close to an all-night party in the capital where shops, tourist sites and museums were meant to stay open until daybreak. Cash machines in Rome went on the blink.

Patrons in one Rome cafe without power to run the coffee machine turned to liqueur instead.

James CRAWFORD