CLP Says 20,000 Households Face 2 Days Without Power

CLP on Wednesday said it would need two days to restore electricity to 20,000 households, after a fire at a cable bridge caused a huge blackout on Tuesday evening across New Territories West. It said the outage had affected 160,000 households but that 140,000 of them had had their power restored by 11 pm.

Spectacular video footage showed the bridge on Kwong Yip Street, which carries the cables over a nullah, being engulfed in flames before collapsing.

CLP said the affected households were on Tin Ching Estate, Tin Yuet Estate, Tin Chak Estate, and in Tin Fu Court in Tin Shui Wai. The power company said it was coordinating with the government and management offices to provide basic public lighting and lift services.

The company said the bridge had last been inspected last year, and that there were three other cable bridges of that type in Hong Kong.

The Fire Services Department said the cause of the fire was still unknown and that two water jets, and two teams with breathing apparatus, had been sent to the scene. And, in a first, the department said fire-fighting robots had been deployed because of the high voltage cables.

In a statement early on Wednesday morning, the government said it was concerned about the incident and that it wanted CLP to investigate it in detail, submit a report, and make sure it didn't happen again.

"We understand that the power outage incident in this very hot weather has greatly affected the public, and we are deeply sorry for this. We appeal to the affected residents to be patient. CLP Power is making every effort to repair, with a view to restoring the power supply as soon as possible," a government spokesman said.

The spokesman said it was an isolated incident, which affected power supply in individual districts. But he said the overall power grid, and power supply situation in Hong Kong, remained normal.