Pampanga outage traced to wire thrown at cable

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO— More than 40,000 households and business establishments in this Pampanga provincial capital went without power intermittently for about five hours on Wednesday after a man who applied for a electric connection to his house threw a cable that hit a 69-kilovolt line, a utility firm and a village chief said.

The man, Napoleon Dayag, 53, suffered third degree burns and was taken to Jose B. Lingad Memorial Regional Hospital here, said Nestor Reyes, barangay (village) captain of Quebiawan.

“Instead of just waiting for the linemen of [San Fernando Electric Light and Power Co. (SFELAPCO)] to arrive, Dayag hurled the cable that reached the 69-kv line,” Reyes said.

The live wire threw Dayag off.

“The line is sensitive and it automatically trips, which is the reason for the brownout,” said Irwin Nucum, corporate communications chief of SFELAPCO.

He said the first interruption lasted for 30 minutes starting at 8:14 a.m., affecting the San Miguel Corp. compound and 50 percent of consumers in northern San Fernando.

The problem did not stop there.

From 9:28 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., sparks were seen at the main power transformer of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, which supplies SFELAPCO, Nucum said. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon