A headline on yesterday's front page stated that "Bermuda faces black-out'' should have stated that Bermuda "may'' face black-outs as a result of the possibility that some suppliers to the Bermuda Electric Light Company not being Year 2000 compliant.

Bermuda could be blacked-out because of the Millennium bug, according to the president and chief executive officer of Bermuda Electric Light Company.

Garry Madeiros made the startling revelation yesterday in a quarterly letter to the power company's shareholders.

While he emphasised that Belco had procedures in place to tackle any problems with their systems produced by Y2K, he said power could not be guaranteed because of problems with Belco suppliers.

And he admitted that some suppliers had found they still needed "correction and/or patches'' to their systems, despite there being less than 100 days until the Millennium.

He said: "Due to our reliance on suppliers, we cannot guarantee that service interruptions will not occur. We are aware, for instance, that various technology suppliers are still finding small bits of code which require correction and/or patches to their systems.

"While we do not expect these instances to have any material effect on our operations, we are nevertheless, continually reviewing and revising our contingency plans to avoid significant service interruptions.'' Mr. Madeiros said in the letter that Belco was confident that as of September 1, they were Y2K compliant. He added that all of Belco's generating units had been successfully tested and were compliant, as were all core applications.