> The thin wire will melt apart before the power lines do. It's a bit more subtle than that. As far as I understand, the thin wire might melt, but its vaporize

> The thin wire will melt apart before the power lines do. It's a bit more subtle than that. As far as I understand, the thin wire might melt, but its vaporized remnants would be enough to keep an arc going between the phases or a phase and the ground. Then the protection devices at both ends of the line would detect the short circuit, turn off the line, wait for a bit of time (enough for the vaporized remnants and ionized air to disperse), and turn the line on again automatically. Since most high-voltage power grids have redundant circuits, it's likely that no consumer would lose power even for a moment.