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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Blackout cripples 16 Mindanao cities
CAGAYAN DE ORO -- A seven-hour 'midnight' blackout hit 16 cities in Mindanao, keeping most residents in this city and other areas in the region awake, officials said Monday.
Lorrymir Adasa, Mindanao vice president of the National Transmission Corporation (Transco), said strong winds blew a tree which fell on one of their transmission lines "somewhere in the franchise area" of the Cagayan de Oro Electric Power and Light Company (Cepalco).
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This line, according to Adasa, supplies power to central, northeastern and southern parts of Mindanao.
Among those affected were the cities of Davao, Panabo, General Santos, Butuan and Cagayan de Oro.
Three Davao del Norte municipalities (Carmen, Dujali and Sto. Tomas), Surigao and Agusan Provinces, as well as Misamis Oriental were also affected.
"Strong winds from Typhoon Nina triggered the automatic tripping," Adasa said.
He added that the "protection system in place on the line detected an abnormality, most likely contact with vegetation due to strong winds, and automatically tripped the Lugait side of the Lugait-Tagoloan 138 kv transmission line at 12:01 a.m. but restored 12:19 a.m. today (Monday)".
Adasa added the flow of electricity to Davao City was restored two hours later after their engineers fixed a problem with the circuit breaker in their facility in Tagoloan town, Misamis Oriental.
He said electricity to General Santos City and Southwestern Mindanao was restored at 3:54 a.m.; in Agusan and Surigao provinces, around 4:45 a.m.; and Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental around 7:30 a.m. Monday.
Davao Light and Power Company, however, said that efforts to restore power in its franchise areas in Davao, Panabo and Davao del Norte took time due to technical problems.
The partial blackout throughout Mindanao came after suspected Moro rebels toppled a Transco power pylon in Barangay Lanipao, Iligan City last Sunday morning.
Superintendent Virgilio Ranes, chief of the Iligan City Police, said some 100 rebels led by Abdul Rahman Macapaar alias Bravo swooped into towers 39 and 41 in Barangay Lanipao and planted several improvised explosives.
Ranes said two bombs fashioned from 81mm mortar shells managed to explode, toppling tower 41, but four bombs planted at tower 39 didn't.
He said a team from the Explosives Ordnance Unit of the Philippine Army and the police removed the unexploded explosives.
Two work gangs from Transco were dispatched to Barangay Lanipao to repair tower 41 and clear the tangled 138KV power lines.
Adasa, however, said the toppling of tower 41 did not affect the supply of electricity in Mindanao.
He also said that he met other Mindanao Transco officials Monday morning and discussed the partial system blackout, as well as remedial measures to the reduced power transmission capacity of the lines which sourced supply from the Agus hydro plants to Cagayan de Oro, Surigao, Davao and General Santos areas.
Teddy Sabugaa, Misamis Oriental disaster preparedness officer, meantime said the strong winds last Sunday night also damaged 44 houses in Gingoog City and Salay town.
He said the winds also whipped up huge waves that smashed into several villages in Salay town, destroying three houses.
Sabugaa said that some 200 families were forced to evacuate to various barangay halls in Salay and Gingoog City. (RVU/ALR/CBC/GLP of Sun.Star Davao/Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Pangasinan. (September 23, 2008 issue)
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