DUMAGUETE – Strong winds toppled a main power transmission tower in Negros Oriental causing a 17-hour power interruption in Dumaguete City and eight municipalities on Thursday.

The transmission line is located in Barangay Basiao in San Jose town and owned by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

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Power was restored around 9 p.m. Thursday but after 15 minutes, the power went out again. Electricity became available again by 9:30 p.m.

Sonia Ruiz, transmission line engineer of the NGCP sub-station in Tandayag, Amlan, Negros Oriental, said the 69 KV structure in Basiao was already unstable before it finally gave in to strong winds.

She said they had discovered that the guy wires holding the two-pole structure had been snipped off by unknown persons earlier.

Only three of the original eight strands of guy wires kept the poles upright, rendering the structure unsound, Ruiz said.

NGCP maintenance crew worked the whole day to ferry on foot two replacement steel posts and other replacement parts to the hilltop tower site in Basiao as the area cannot be accessed by vehicles.

Ruiz said pilferage of their posts is very common as the people who steal them use the guy wires for makeshift fishing spears.

Affected by the power outage were Dumaguete City and the towns of Sibulan, San Jose, Amlan, Valencia, Bacong, Dauin, Zamboanguita and Siaton.

The Basiao transmission line supplies direct power to the Negros Oriental 2 Electric Cooperative and huge industries such as the Dumaguete Coconut Mills Inc. (Ducomi) and Orica Nitrates in Bacong town.(PNA/Sunnex)