| | Without electricity for over an hour
Some 60 HDB blocks in Woodlands affected
Weekend • September 22, 2007
Daphne Chuah
daphne@mediacorp.com.sg
A POWER glitch on Friday morning left thousands of homes in Woodlands without electricity for over an hour.
The outage, which struck at around 8.15am, affected about 60 Housing and Development Board (HDB) blocks along Woodlands Ring Road. In addition, 17 traffic lights on eight roads failed, but no accidents were reported.
At Woodlands Primary School, along Woodlands Drive, some teachers moved their lessons outdoors. According to its principal Mr Tan Yan Song, the school's operations manager, security officers and attendants took on traffic warden duties, as traffic lights near the school had failed.
Power in all the affected areas was fully restored within one-and-a-half hours.
While residents reacted calmly, Mr Steven Yeo, 48, a quality assurer, said: "If this were to occur at night, things would be different. I wonder if HDB would consider installing backup power generators that could pull us through for a few hours?"
The cause of Friday's power outage is still under investigation.
On Dec 21 last year, the tripping of two power generation plants left several areas including Bukit Batok, Choa Chu Kang New Town, Jalan Eunos and Seng Kang without power for 45 minutes.
In June 2004, a massive two-hour power outage affected some 300,000 homes across the island, resulting in economic losses worth $6 million. The cause was a disruption of gas supply to power stations.
The Energy Market Authority subsequently imposed penalties of between $50,000 and $2 million should companies responsible for electricity transmission be liable for performance lapses. Companies will also face a fine of up to $1 million if their equipment or cables cause a power failure. |
