397,000 Meralco customers face power outages due to Kristine

MANILA, Philippines — Around 397,000 Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) customers affected by Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (international name: Trami) are experiencing power interruptions as of Thursday afternoon.

However, Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said this figure had already gone down compared to the 535,000 affected clients recorded around 8 a.m.

READ: Kristine kills 7 persons, affects over 2 million people, says NDRRMC

“As of 11 a.m., we would like to inform you that there are still a lot of areas within the Meralco franchise that are affected,” Zaldarriaga revealed in a press briefing.

“We have around 397,000 customers still affected by power interruptions as of noon. So it went down from around 535,000 reported as of 8 o’clock this morning,” he added.

READ: LIVE UPDATES: Tropical Storm Kristine

Zaldriaga disclosed that most of the affected customers are in Laguna, Cavite, Quezon Province, Batangas, Metro Manila, and Bulacan.

READ: Kristine is now over Cordillera Region crossing Northern Luzon – Pagasa

“Most of these power outages are due to strong winds, except for around 80 customers in Valenzuela due to the flood. We expect this to go down further as the day progresses because the work of our line personnel in the affected areas is non-stop,” he said.