A fire at Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) Wanlong substation in Taipei’s Wenshan District (文山) yesterday morning caused more than 300,000 households in Taipei and New Taipei City to temporarily lose power, the Taipei City Government said, adding that there were no casualties.
The city government said that Taipower reported a mechanical malfunction at its Taipei primary substation at 10:42am yesterday, which led to the fire.
The substation’s 161 kilovolt (kV) and 69kV power supply systems were shut off, leading to a power outage in some parts of Taipei’s Muzha (木柵) area and New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店), the city government said.
Photo: CNA
The Taipei Fire Department said that it immediately dispatched firefighters after receiving a report at 9:56am that a power transformer at the Wanlong substation had caught fire and was emitting heavy smoke.
Twenty fire trucks and two ambulances, along with 57 personnel, were sent to the substation, and the fire was put out at 10:26am with no casualties, it said.
The city said many residents called the 1999 hotline to report power and water outages.
The Taipei Water Department said that due to the power outage, several water purification plants and booster pump stations were shut down, and although emergency generators allowed operations to resume, water pressure in some parts of the city was affected.
Taipower restored power after 10:20am, and the booster pump stations resumed operations, he said.
A Taipower report at 11am said that 305,418 households in Taipei’s Wenshan District and New Taipei City’s Sindian District had been affected by the outage.
Taipower held a news conference in the afternoon to explain the incident and apologize.
The Wanlong substation’s No. 5 distribution transformer had a malfunction that caused its insulating oil to catch fire and smoke, which led to an insulation failure, and caused power supply systems to shut down, Taipower spokesman Chang Ting-shu (張廷抒) said.
Power was restored to the affected households and facilities by 1:07pm, he added.
Taipower dismissed rumors that the nation has an insufficient power supply; that it had to step down the voltage, which caused the outage; or that more than 10,000 liters of oil were stored under the substation, which prevented water from being used to extinguish the fire.
While oil was stored under the substation, the power outage was not associated with national supply and demand, as the operating reserve margin was as high as 37.17 percent when the fire broke out, indicating sufficient supply, it said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we