Arequipa is Peru's second city and
every August they have a week long fair with big firework displays. The
best place to see them is on the Grau bridge over the river Chili. On the
evening of August 14th 1996 the town and the bridge in particular was
packed. Nobody on
the bridge was watching the high voltage overhead power cables because they were
much more interested in the dazzling fireworks all around them.
Suddenly a firework rocket exploded against one of the cables
and brought it down onto the bridge. To onlookers at a distance it looked like part of
the display but to those close up it could be seen as a disaster too horrible to
think about. The broken cable unleashed a 10,000 volt current into the crowd
electrocuting dozens in an instant and starting a deadly panic. Many would
later describe how spectators struck by the cable spontaneously burst into
flames, while television footage of the aftermath would show dozens of
motionless bodies strewn across the bridge, several still burning.
Some 35 people died on the Grau Bridge that evening, and
another 42 were seriously injured. There is no doubt then that a large
voltage means that a large amount of energy is being carried by the moving
charges that make up a current.
(Source TES 22/4/05)