Power outage hits nearly half of Mindanao

Almost half of Mindanao suffered a power outage starting at about 12:50 p.m. yesterday, lasting up to three hours in some areas.

Officials of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) ruled out sabotage, saying the power failure was caused by "technical problems."

"There was an overloading of transmission lines. It was not an issue of sabotage," National Transmission Co. (Transco) spokesman Arvee Villafuerte said.

Greg Cayetano, Napocor manager for network operations, said the power failure was caused by the tripping of three major transmission lines — the Agus-Kibawe, Abagat-Tagoloan (both 138 kilovolts) and Agus-Lugait-Tagoloan lines.

Among the areas hit by the blackout were the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, Bislig, Koronadal, Iligan, Cotabato and Davao, the two Surigao provinces and the South Cotabato-Sarangani-General Santos (Socsargen) area.

The overloading of the transmission lines, Cayetano said, caused the total load of Mindanao to drop to 330 megawatts from the usual 800- to 900-MW demand.

"Almost half of the total grid of Mindanao was affected. But we were able to contain and immediately restore the power to some parts of the island," he said.

Napocor, he said, was able to bring back power to Cagayan De Oro City and Butuan City and parts of Davao at about 1:30 p.m.

Napocor was able to restore 90 to 95 percent of power in the affected areas at about 2 p.m., and by 100 percent at about 3:10 p.m. — Donnabelle Gatdula, John Unson and John Paul Jubelag