Review pushed after another Tsing Yi outage

The government has requested CLP Power to fully examine its power supply system after more than 300 households at Cheung On Estate in Tsing Yi suffered a power outage for an hour yesterday- the second in the district in less than a week.

Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan expressed his "extreme disappointment" to CLP Power Hong Kong managing director Joseph Law Ka-chun.

At about 9.50am, residents heard a loud bang from the meter room triggering an outage at the entire On Mei House in Cheung On Estate, said Kwai Ching district councillor Lo Yuen-ting from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

Several lifts in the estate stopped, and multiple units were without power. The Fire Services Department received five cases of people being trapped in lifts in the area between 9.58am and 10.14am.

The power supply was restored an hour later at 11.04am after emergency maintenance, while Lo quoted CLP engineers telling him that maintenance work would take about 10 hours.

The Environment and Ecology Bureau said it was shocked and highly concerned that two power outages occurred in Tsing Yi in six days, which were not due to external causes such as inclement weather.

It has requested CLP to immediately launch a comprehensive review of its power supply system and carry out preventive inspections and maintenance arrangements to ensure that the incident will not reoccur.

The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department will hold a meeting with CLP today to follow up on the incident and it has also requested the power company to identify the outage cause and submit a detailed report within two weeks.

A CLP spokesman said the incident was caused by a breakdown of an 11,000-volt cable in the substation of On Mei House at around 9.38am, affecting around 388 households.

It apologized to the affected households but emphasized the incident was not related to the voltage dip incident in Tsing Yi district last week.

On New Year's Day, thick white smoke engulfed the Nga Ying Chau Street CLP substation, prompting multiple cases of people trapped in lifts and triggering automatic fire alarms in the New Territories.

A woman, Tsang, was one of the affected residents at the Cheung On Estate yesterday as the lifts were out of service

"I walked downstairs from the 32nd floor and my feet feel like jelly now," she said.

Another resident, Yu, said: "There was no odor and I only heard a bang. Luckily it's Sunday and [the power outage] didn't bring much disturbance to us. I'd just stay at home and sleep."

Kwai Ching district councillor Pang Yap-ming from the Federation of Trade Unions said that the electricity supply at On Mei House resumed at around 11.30am.

"A huge 'bang' was heard. The TV and the lifts were shut down while the residents were waiting in the lobby at On Mei House," he said.

"Meanwhile, residents at Villa Esplanada nearby told me that they saw lights flickering and lifts were out of service. But the electricity supply soon resumed."

eunice.lam@singtaonewscorp.com