Tsuen Wan power out for 90 minutes
Tsuen Wan residents and businesses lost power for 90 minutes yesterday, forcing police to direct traffic and keeping firefighters busy rescuing people trapped in lifts.
CLP Power said the failure, just before 5pm, was due to an unspecified problem at its New Hoi Shing Road substation, which converts high-voltage electricity to low voltage for domestic use.
A spokeswoman said the cause was still being investigated.
The affected area included Hoi Shi Road, Mei Wan Street and Tai Ho Road and included several shopping malls and residential estates.
Vendors at a wet market in the area said they were hit hard by the blackout because they had to sell their fish and vegetables at cut-throat prices. A fish vendor said many of his fish had died from lack of oxygen when the pumps in the tanks lost power.
Many elderly residents had to wait outside markets or their blocks for more than an hour as they were not strong enough to walk up the stairs, while many younger home-goers scaled 20 or 30 floors by foot.
Candles were lit in some restaurants, but MTR services were unaffected as the railway uses a separate power supply. Yan Chai Hospital in Tsuen Wan was also not affected, the Hospital Authority said.
A government spokeswoman said firefighters were called to 38 incidents of people trapped in lifts between 4.54pm and 6.13pm.
There were no road accidents, despite the failure of traffic lights.
A spokeswoman for CLP Power said electricity supply was resumed at 6.15pm.
On June 30, a brief but widespread voltage drop, between Black Point and Castle Peak, was caused when lighting struck an overhead cable. It disrupted train services and trapped scores of people in lifts across the city.
Although it lasted less than a hundredth of a second, the voltage dip triggered the protection systems in lifts. Firefighters were called to free people from jammed lifts at 37 locations.
