Thousands of households in Wong Tai Sin were plunged into darkness for around four hours on Wednesday night after a faulty cable caused a power outage.
Electricity company CLP Power said in a statement on Wednesday that a cable in the Kowloon district had malfunctioned at around 8 pm, affecting 2,250 households. Residents Mei Tung Estate’s Mei Tak House, Lower Wong Tai Sin (II) Estate’s Lung Kwong House and Lions Rise were among those affected.
Photos on social media showed apartment lobbies and Temple Mall, the district’s largest shopping centre, in darkness. Restaurant staff in the mall told local media that customers were forced to dine in the dark, while some left because there was no air conditioning.
CLP Power arranged mobile generator trucks and apologised for the incident, saying it was looking into the cause of the power failure. In a second statement published in the early hours of Thursday, CLP said power was restored at around midnight.
The Fire Services Department received at least five reports of people trapped in lifts, local media reported, while police were deployed to manage traffic after the outage extinguished street lamps and traffic lights.
The government said in a statement on Wednesday night that it was “very concerned” about the power cut and noted that some residents “might have an uncomfortable night under this hot weather.” Authorities opened two temporary shelters for residents in need.
District councillors in Wong Tai Sin, together with volunteers, also visited affected households and offered them bread and water.
In January, CLP Power was involved in two electricity cuts in Tsing Yi that caused lift failures and plunged households into darkness.
“After an in-depth investigation and a review by an independent electrical engineering expert, it is confirmed that the two incidents were isolated cases, occurring at two different power systems with different voltage levels,” a CLP Power statement issued after investigating the outages read.
CLP Power is one of two of Hong Kong’s major electricity providers, supplying electricity to Kowloon, the New Territories and most outlying islands.
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