Power Failure Continues to Grip Part of Chicago : Blackout: About 20,000 homes and businesses on the city’s West Side remain without electricity. Forty-nine people have been arrested for looting.

About 20,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity today in the wake of a power failure that led looters to ransack more than a dozen grocery and liquor stores on the city’s West Side.

Police said they arrested 49 people on looting-related charges after a generating plant fire knocked out power to 40,000 customers late Saturday night.

About 15 stores were ransacked, said Detective Luby Novitovic, who cautioned that it was a “rough estimate.”

Three people died early Sunday in a fire started by candles they were using to light their home.

Four other fires broke out on the West Side later Sunday, but firefighters could not confirm if they were related to the blackout.

There were scattered reports of looting Sunday night, but no arrests were made, police said.

“We’ve got enough troops now. We’ve got them on the run,” said police Sgt. John McDonald.

He said the number of police on the streets in the affected area had been increased to 300 from 100 on Saturday night.

Power was restored to about 20,000 customers by 4 p.m. Sunday, Commonwealth Edison said, but a similar number were without electricity this morning in the 14-square-mile area.

Sgt. Robert Pistilli said there had been no burglaries and just two misdemeanor arrests between 4 p.m. Sunday and 1 a.m. today.

City officials played down the disturbances.

“There is no need for a curfew. There is no call for the National Guard,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said. “It was only a blackout. There was no riot. There was no heavy looting.”

The blackout stemmed from a series of small explosions that began shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday in a faulty transformer at a coal-burning plant on the West Side, said John Hogan, another Commonwealth Edison spokesman. The resulting blaze knocked out the cables that route power to most of the West Side.

The blaze wasn’t extinguished until 6:30 a.m. Sunday.

Looting began in West Side business districts within minutes after the blackout and continued until sunrise, police said.

Some stores were ransacked and some emptied, business owners and police said. Vandals smashed glass doors and windows, and some chopped holes in the roofs of stores to gain entrance.

“They took everything,” said Mike Alsars, who was guarding Way-Low Discount Foods on Sunday morning. “All the shelves are empty. All the coolers are empty. The floors look like garbage.”