A massive electricity outage hit Brazil's two largest cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, leaving millions of people in the dark.

Dark buildings are seen during a blackout in Sao Paulo November 11, 2009. A major electricity outage at the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, the world's largest operational electricity generator on the border with Paraguay, left tens of millions of people in Brazil's two largest cities of Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro without power, according to the Brazilian director of the dam. [Xinhua/Reuters Photo]

The government has confirmed that the power failure was due to problems at the Itaipu dam, the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer which supplies 20 percent of Brazil's electricity.

The Brazilian director of the dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay told a radio station that the power output of the entiredam was down.

The exact cause of the power failure is still unknown.

Other major cities, including the capital Brasilia, were also affected by the power cut, according to the website of Globo TV.

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