porto rebecca ritter's at the berlin cathedral and staying in germany a power blackout at hamburg and porters grounded hundreds of flights and left thousands of passengers stranded and airport officials said the source of the power failure was a short circuit but they were unable to say when the electricity will be restored. chaos across the concourse where travelers at first didn't know what was going on without power the p.a. system couldn't function. nor did the lights and for security reasons even the backup power system which could have functioned was switched off as well according to airport officials that was necessary to determine the cause of the blackout before long travelers were told to evacuate the building until the problem is solved germany's fifth largest airport is closed for business. we were up there getting ready to board and then suddenly they told us to get out it's chaos hundreds of people standing around the air conditioning is down so now we're all sitting here wondering what's going to happen next what argued stranded passengers got free water and look to kil