last week's Island-wide blackout.

They have finally discovered the cause of the power cut and made adjustments to their equipment, they announced yesterday.

The blackout, the first to hit the whole Island since 1983, started at 5.30 a.m. on Saturday. Power was gradually restored between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.

President Mr. Garry Madeiros and senior vice-president Mr. Vincent Ingham explained the crisis was caused by problems with two of the plant's five engines.

Mr. Ingham told a press conference: "We lost one engine and this in turn caused a problem with the second engine.

"When we lost that engine we were in a condition where the remaining three engines were unable to supply the load, and they in turn shut down.'' Mr.

Madeiros said the problem with the second engine did not become apparent until it tried to pick up the load of the first engine.

"There was no single cause of the outage, but rather a number of factors, which when they came together, over-rode the protections built into the system to prevent a blackout.

"Having identified the problem with the engine that caused the blackout, we have made some adjustments on the system.

"We have also placed restrictions on the amount of load the engine can carry to prevent it from operating in the zone that would make it unstable. "We feel confident that these steps will prevent any further occurrence of this type of situation.'' Belco had carried out a "thorough investigation'' into the blackout. The crisis had cost the company $155,000, he said.

Communication links, particularly with customers with serious needs for power, were being examined.

"But a lot of the feedback that we received was that we had acted quite quickly in comparison to many occasions in the past, for example during hurricanes.'' Communications had been affected by parts of the phone system not working on back-up power, he said.

Ms Linda Smith, publicity officer for the company, pointed out the emergency radio station had not come on the air until 8 a.m., meaning Belco could not tell the public what was happening.

"But it worked very well when it was up,'' she said. The first engine failed at a bad time, said Mr. Ingham. The load was low at that time of the morning, and the system had therefore been weak.

Mr. Madeiros and Mr. Ingham praised Belco workers for helping in the crisis.