Pylons bolstered to cope with super typhoons

The city's ageing electricity pylons will not withstand super typhoons that are increasingly likely to strike the city amid climate change, according to CLP, which yesterday briefed the media on measures to strengthen the structures.

The city's largest power company said it was strengthening 151 pylons, each more than 30 years old, that are more prone to destruction by strong winds, and enforcing the slopes surrounding them. Most of the work will be completed in two years.

CLP's director of power systems Chow Tang-fai said the electricity network was designed in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the facilities were made to withstand winds no stronger than 240 km/h .

But he said: 'In recent years, we have seen super typhoons in other countries with winds as strong as 300km/h,' he said. 'Hong Kong is lucky that no such typhoons have struck the city in the past few years, but we must prepare for them.'

Chow said typhoon Megi, one of the most intense typhoons ever recorded - and which killed dozens of people in Philippines and Taiwan in 2010 - was a sign that the city was becoming more prone to super typhoons, as Hong Kong lay directly in its path at one point.

There are more than 700 high-voltage pylons in CLP's network, of which 151 are susceptible to strong winds, according to CLP. These will be reinforced with steel and the company is studying 74 surrounding slopes to see if they too need reinforcement. The company has also bought three temporary pylons that could swiftly replace a damaged one.

Workers are installing automatic switches on overhead cables, so fewer consumers will be affected if power lines are damaged.