Power outages across the Washington area knocked out electricity at the U.S. State Department and briefly disrupted activities at the White House, the Capitol and the city’s tourist attractions.

　　华盛顿地区停电波及美国国务院，并短暂影响了白宫、国会大厦及城市景点的活动。

　　The power failure Tuesday was caused by a dip in voltage because of a problem with a transmission line, the Pepco power company said in a Twitter posting.

　　电力公司Pepco在twitter上指出，输电线故障引起的电压骤降导致了周二的停电。

　　Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative said a Pepco transmission conductor at a SMECO switching station in Charles County, Maryland, broke free from its support and fell to the ground, interrupting supply to four stations. Electricity has been restored to its customers, the Maryland cooperative said.

　　南马里兰州电力合作社(简称SMECO)表示，该社在马里兰州查尔斯郡的某个交换站内的Pepco导线因损坏从支架上坠落，导致4个交换站的电力供应中断。不过供电已经恢复。

　　U.S. Homeland Security officials “do not currently see a nexus to terrorism or anything like that,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. President Barack Obama wasn’t affected, and the effect on White House staff was “minimal,” Earnest said. He said he and Obama were in the Oval Office during the outage.

　　白宫发言人约什·厄内斯特告知媒体，美国国土安全局“尚未发现此事与恐怖主义等有关。停电只“轻微”妨碍了白宫的工作人员，而奥巴马总统则完全不受此事影响。他还指出，停电时，他和奥巴马总统正在椭圆形办公室(美国总统的正式办公室)里。

　　Power was restored at the State Department in phases. During the outage, hallways were lit only by light filtering in from the windows. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf completed her press briefing in the dark, reading from a binder by the light of her iPhone as reporters took notes with lighting from their mobile phones.

　　国务院的供电很快就被恢复。停电期间，走廊只能靠窗外的光线照明。国务院女发言人玛丽‧哈尔芙靠iPhone照明读完简报，而记者们同样在手机光线下做了记录。

　　更多精彩内容 >> 新东方网英语频道 

　　全国新东方英语课程搜索

（责任编辑：何莹莹）