Hong Kong Island power outage caused by short circuit after ‘accidental’ cable connection, says electricity company
Hong Kong Free Press
The power outage that plunged several districts on Hong Kong Island into darkness, some for up to an hour, on Wednesday was caused by a short circuit after a “spare cable” was accidentally connected, power company Hong Kong Electric has said.
The blackout occurred soon after midnight on Wednesday, and resulted in 30 reports of people trapped in lifts, 37 reports of false fire alarms, and multiple reports of small fires, the Fire Services Department said. There was no reported injuries.
In a statement on Thursday, Hong Kong Electric said that a preliminary investigation had revealed that the incident was caused by an “unrecorded spare cable and on-site operation procedures.”
“This cable was accidentally connected to the power system after switchgear maintenance causing a short circuit. This triggered the automatic protection mechanism in the power
supply system to operate and affected electricity supply,” Hong Kong Electric’s statement read.
The company said that the “spare cable” was not documented in the circuit diagram or the site identification labels, and therefore it was not taken into account. The power supply was “fully restored” in 48 minutes, Hong Kong Electric said.
The company will file a detailed report to the government within four weeks as per the requirement, it added.
Edward Lo, a representative from the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers Electrical Division, said on RTHK on Friday that it was hard to imagine that the staff connected an unrecorded cable, and that the incident involved human negligence.
He added that Hong Kong Electric should review whether the were other undocumented spare cables. The company is one of two power providers in the city, and supplies power to Hong Kong Island and Lamma Island.
The incident on Wednesday was the second large-scale power outage incident in Hong Kong in a year.
Last June, 160,000 households in New Territories West were plunged into darkness after a fire broke out on a power cable bridge in Long Ping.
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