A centralized-distributed wide area backup protection is presented on negative sequence component. This paper determines the likely faulty area composed of likely faulty buses and lines by sorting the negative sequence voltage of buses, based on the distribution of negative sequence voltage. A hierarchical searching algorithm is applied in this paper. Estimate the direction of negative sequence flow of the IEDs concerned with strongly suspected faulty buses and lines, until the faulty buses or lines are removed. This algorithm uploads only the message of strongly suspected faulty area to the decision center, reducing the calculated quantity and communication traffic and speeding up faulty elements identification. Simulation test illustrates the effectiveness and the adaptability when grounding resistance and flow transferring and cross-country fault happens.