spent the night sleeping in train stations and on streets in Rome. Throughout Italy, 110 trains were cancelled, with 30,000 people stranded on trains in the railway network. All flights in Italy were also cancelled. Police described the scene as chaos but there were no serious accidents. The blackout did not spread further to neighboring countries, such as Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, which are connected to Italy. Only part of the Geneva Canton of Switzerland suffered a power outage for three hours. Restoration of service After three hours, energy was restored in northern regions. Electricity was restored gradually in most places, and in most cities electricity was powered on again during the morning. Rolling blackouts continued to affect about 5% of the population on the next two days (29–30 September) as the electricity company GRTN continued its effort to restore supply. Official report The final report of the investigation committee on the 28 September 2003 blackout in Italy was published in April 2004 by UCTE. Scientific research Researchers in physics and complex networks have modelled the 2003 Italy blackout as a cascade of failures in interdependent networks. Several nodes in the network of power stations failed, causing a failure of the Internet communication network, which in turn caused a further breakdown of power stations. The goal of research was to understand how to build more robust networks. See also Northeast Blackout of 2003 2015 Turkey blackout List of power outages References External links BBC News Online: Huge blackout cripples Italy Official Swiss government report (.pdf, 171 KB) from 01.Nov.2003 National blackout in Italy (Appledaily Hong Kong) (in Chinese) (requires login if accessing outside of Hong Kong) Blackout Italy Blackout, 2003 Italy, 2003 History of the Italian Republic September 2003 events in Europe 2003 in Italy 2003 in technology