By ALAN CLENDENNING

The Associated Press

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 8:16 PM

BRASILIA, Brazil — Rio de Janeiro’s posh beach neighborhoods lost power for hours in sweltering summer weather Tuesday, prompting restaurants to toss out spoiled food and business owners to send employees home.

The outage came two weeks after a massive blackout left more than 60 million people in the dark and raised questions about the nation’s ability to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Supermarket workers separate spoiled food to be thrown out due to a blackout in the Ipanema neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. Rio de Janeiro’s best beach neighborhoods lost power Tuesday in sweltering summer weather, forcing restaurants to toss out spoiled food and business owners to send their employees home. The outage came two weeks to the day after much of Brazil was darkened with by much larger electrical outage. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) (Felipe Dana – AP)

Light SA, which supplies electricity to the city of 6 million, said only 12,000 clients were affected starting before dawn in the affluent Rio district of Leblon.

But lights were also out in Copacabana, Ipanema and Lagoa. The four neighborhoods have more than 250,000 residents and are key tourist destinations.

The power company said the outage began when it cut off power to fix a problem with an underground cable. Electricity was restored to the beach areas by late afternoon, but Brazilian media reported that other neighborhoods in poor zones were still in the dark.

Tourists and shop workers sweated out the outage on the streets and on the beach as temperatures hit 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) during the South American summer.

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