(UPDATED) A lightning strike caused transmission lines of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in Cebu City to trip before midnight on Friday, which led to a blackout in several parts of the Visayas overnight.
Initial findings point to the lightning strike causing the simultaneous outage of the 138-kilovolt (kV) Colon-Cebu Lines 1, 2, and 3, as well as we 138kV Colon-Quiot Line, NGCP said in its official Facebook page. The incident resulted in sudden power interruptions not only in Cebu, but also in Bohol, Samar, and Leyte.
Power in all affected areas was fully restored as of 12:16PM.
Prior to the restoration, Energy Sec. Alfonso Cusi asked the NGCP to explain the trigger of the blackout.
“We are asking the NGCP, who is responsible for system operations, to provide the immediate remedy to this ‘system failure’, to explain to its customers the reason for this, and to prevent this from happening again,” Cusi said in a statement.
The Department of Energy has also asked the Energy Regulatory Commission to look into the incident.