Taiwanese minister resigns after error at power plant plunges 668,000 homes into darkness
Four-hour electricity outage leaves people trapped in lifts, traffic at a standstill across major cities
More than 668,000 homes as well as office buildings and department stores across Taiwan were plunged into darkness on Tuesday after a human error at a power station caused a massive electricity outage.
The incident happened about 4:50pm when six units at the Datan Power Station in Taoyuan, south of Taipei, tripped, causing a drop of four million kilowatts of electricity, the government-run Taiwan Power Corporation said.
The island’s emergency services were inundated with calls for help, some from people who had become trapped in lifts because of the outage, local media reported. The New Taipei fire service said it received more than 100 calls in two hours after the blackout.
Economics Minister Lee Chih-kung took responsibility for the incident and tendered his resignation to Premier Lin Chuan, who accepted, cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung announced.
“Minister Lee will submit his written resignation to the cabinet in the next day or two,” he said.