Serbian television says these pictures are of the wreckage of the U.S. F-16 plane RELATED VIDEO: CNN's David Ensor reports from the Pentagon on the crash of the F-16 (May 2) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviews Jesse Jackson (May 2) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Matthew Chance reports from Landstuhl, Germany, on the freed U.S. servicemen (May 2) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Jesse Jackson news conference (May 1) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Kosovo, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: Latest from Kosovo The Kosovo refugees Images of NATO bomb attack on Serbian TV headquarters The Serbs and Kosovo  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  ALSO: NATO airstrikes press on despite prisoner release  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

May 2, 1999
Web posted at: 10:39 p.m. EDT (0239 GMT)

In this story: NATO renews attacks despite prisoner release Two U.S. warplanes crash in airstrikes NATO admits civilian bus strike Macedonia refugee plight worsens Reports of intense KLA, Serb combat RELATED STORIES, SITES

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO air raids struck a series of major Yugoslav power plants Sunday, knocking out power across Serbia, including Belgrade, senior Yugoslav officials told CNN Sunday.

NATO bombs damaged a power plant in Kostolac, 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Belgrade along the Danube River, which supplies electricity to all subsidiary power plants across Serbia.

An official government source said NATO planes also hit a plant in the southern city of Nis and another in Obrenovac, about 18 miles (30 km) west of Belgrade.

State-owned Serbian television, a repeated target of NATO airstrikes, went off the air around 9:45 p.m. (3:45 p.m. ET), as did all other television and radio stations.

Yugoslav Minister of Health Leposava Milicevic, speaking with CNN by phone, said the situation was causing serious problems throughout Serbia.

Without electricity, water could not be supplied to critical locations like hospitals, she said.

CNN's Brent Sadler, reporting from the Yugoslav capital, said: "Belgrade is now in darkness for as far as the eye can see."

While there was heavy anti-aircraft fire in Belgrade, Sadler did not report any explosions in or around the city center of Yugoslavia's capital.

NATO and Pentagon declined to say whether the power plants were targeted for an attack, and deferred further questions until a Monday morning briefing.

But earlier Sunday, U.S. and alliance officials said that, despite the release of three U.S. soldiers in Yugoslav captivity, air attacks against the country will continue unabated.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must fully accept NATO conditions for a resolution to the civil conflict in Kosovo between separatist ethnic Albanians and Serbian forces before the alliance halts the airstrikes, the officials said.

NATO on Sunday reported that it had lost two U.S. aircraft in its Kosovo air campaign overnight Saturday.

An F-16 crashed about 18 kilometers (11 miles) east of the Serbian town of Kozluk early Sunday, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said. The plane was returning from a combat mission in Yugoslavia.

"The pilot ejected at around 2:20 a.m. (1200 GMT) this morning, and he was rescued by NATO forces two hours later," Shea said. "He is safely back at his operating base, where he is receiving medical attention and being debriefed on the incident."

Serbian air defense officials said they shot down the F-16, but NATO military spokesman Col. Konrad Freytag said the jet crashed after experiencing engine failure. He said the cause of the engine failure was unknown.

The second plane lost was a Harrier jump jet, which crashed into the Adriatic Sea while returning to the amphibious assault carrier USS Kearsarge from a training mission. Its pilot was also rescued, Shea said.

Previously, NATO lost an F-117 stealth fighter, which went down in Serbia on March 27; and an Apache helicopter, which crashed while training in Albania last month. Four pilotless "drones" also have been lost.

NATO also said early Sunday that one of its attacks hit a civilian bus crossing a bridge near Luzane, north of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. NATO says the bridge was "used extensively by the Serb armed forces."

At least 34 people died in the attack, according to Serb news reports and witnesses.

"The pilot released the weapon, and only after he released the weapon did the bus come on the bridge," Shea said. "We will continue to do everything we can to try and avoid those kinds of incidents. We can't eliminate them altogether."

The bus was sliced in half by the attack and caught fire. Half of it remained on the bridge, while the other half plunged 13 meters (40 feet) over the edge. The bridge remained standing.

Reporters brought to the scene said they saw bodies and body parts strewn around the scene.

In Macedonia, an estimated 5,000 refugees streamed across the border within the past day, officials told CNN.

Some refugees have only blankets for living quarters

At least 80,000 are squeezed into refugee camps with hopelessly inadequate facilities, they said. For some of the new arrivals, a piece of plastic is all they can expect for living quarters, as relief officials are unable to house nearly half the newcomers.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zupce Georievski, touring a border camp Sunday, expressed concern that his country had "not received one dollar" from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Four hundred of the refugees are expected to leave Tuesday to fly to the United States, which has agreed to temporarily house 20,000 Kosovars during the conflict. They will be processed for several weeks at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

In Albania, new refugees from Kosovo say Serb police are detaining women and children, possibly using them to serve as human shields.

One refugee from the border town of Prizen said, "It's totally panicky in the city. They're taking people as hostages."

In Southwest Kosovo, there were reports of heavy fighting between separatist ethnic Albanians and Serbian military forces.

Rebels with the Kosovo Liberation Army have engaged in a major offensive to open a corridor and unite with other KLA forces farther in the interior of the province, Turkish journalist Mithat Bereket told CNN.

The Serbian military answered with heavy artillery and tanks, he said.

Bereket said there were indications that the Serbian army was suffering from low morale and a high rate of desertions.

He said there were reports that Serbian soldiers were making 15- to 50-year-old Kosovar Albanians set up mines, dig trenches against tanks and give blood to prepare for a ground offensive.

Correspondents Brent Sadler, Tom Mintier and Jane Arraf contributed to this report.

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