People Trapped In Lifts During Blackout

Authorities said they received dozens of reports of people being trapped in lifts and fire alarms going off, while some traffic lights malfunctioned, during a power outage on Hong Kong Island in the small hours of Wednesday.

Areas affected by the outage included Morrison Hill, Pok Fu Lam, Ap Lei Chau, Shau Kei Wan and Heng Fa Chuen.

A resident surnamed Lee, who lives in Siu Sai Wan, described what happened after several buildings near him lost power.

"I saw some security guards walking around, and many residents went down to the streets. Many at the blocks that were out of power had shone their flashlights, and some were yelling. I think it lasted for half an hour," he told RTHK.

DAB legislator Leung Hei said Hongkong Electric should be held accountable if it’s found to be at fault.

"If it is really the responsibility of HK Electric, we can take a step forward and see if we have to do some punishments or other kinds of actions," Leung said.

Lawmaker Stanley Ng from the Federation of Trade Unions, meanwhile, called for more transparency.

"HK Electric should take the initiative to provide a timely explanation of what went wrong, how to prevent it from happening again, and what measures can be taken to improve their service in future. I believe this is an attitude problem," he said.

The company said a fault in its supply system led to a voltage dip overnight, plunging parts of Hong Kong Island into darkness.

It said the system malfunctioned at 12:49am and the problem lasted for around 45 minutes.

Hongkong Electric apologised for the incident and said it's investigating the root cause of the fault and will submit a report to the government.

The government said in a statement that it's "highly concerned" by the outage and has asked the firm to submit a detailed report in four weeks.

Authorities also said it will propose revising the incentive and penalty mechanism for the two power companies later this year in a bid to better protect public interest. They said any penalty being assessed should not only take into consideration how long an outage lasts.

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