Lawmakers and engineers call for safety review of power cable bridges after fire led to Hong Kong’s worst outage in decades
- CLP Power, whose cable bridge caught fire on Tuesday, has at least three other similar structures in the city
- One question being asked is why a backup system did not kick in to restore power to 160,000 households
Lawmakers and experts in Hong Kong have called for a safety review of at least three power cable bridges in the city, two days after a fire destroyed one such structure and knocked out power for 160,000 households for hours.
More frequent inspections, including checks into whether fire safety standards were up to date, were needed for the exposed structures, they said on Thursday.
The calls came as about 13,000 households in Yuen Long experienced a temporary power outage at around 8pm for about 30 minutes. Electricity supplier CLP Power attributed it to instability brought on by restoration works.
The fire on Tuesday centred on a CLP cable bridge in the area and triggered the city’s worst power outage in decades. Hundreds of thousands were forced to sweat out a warm night without electricity or water. Rail operations were briefly suspended and hospital services were disrupted. Power resumed on Wednesday morning, after 13 hours.
CLP Power told the media it had three more cable bridges to supply power in other parts of the city, which it found safe on immediate checks after the incident, but would not disclose their locations for security reasons.