Shanghai, the top metropolis in China and a key draw for
tourists with its brilliant night skyline, said on Thursday that it
would turn off all decorative street lamps during the seven-day
Spring Festival to ease the burden on the electricity grid.
This was the first time for such a move, the Shanghai City
Appearance and Environment Sanitation Administrative Bureau said.
Due to the power shortages caused by severe winter weather, the
festive lights went off on Jan. 31 and would stay off for the full
holiday period, which ends on Feb. 12, it said.
In the first four days of 'lights out,' about 240,000 kilowatts
of electricity were saved.
By late Wednesday, China had managed to resume full or partial
power service in 164 of the 169 counties and cities that were
blacked out by severe weather. That included parts of Chenzhou, a
hard-hit city in the central province of Hunan, where 4 million
residents were without power and tap water for 11 days.
(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2008)