The power went out for over half an hour across parts of the CBD last Friday, and Singapore Power has traced the cause of the blackout to maintenance work by their own crew at a substation that (literally) dark day.
What apparently happened was that a test equipment component was not removed before the system was re-energized, resulting in supply disruption. Technical stuff, but the human error was grave enough to leave thousands of offices, retail stores, restaurants and even traffic lights without power for 34 minutes. According to SP Group, over 3,100 customers were affected in parts of Raffles Quay, Robinson Road, and Shenton Way.
The disruption to the electricity supply also left those working in high-rise office spaces stranded either inside elevators or without the means to go up or down easily — unless they were willing to put in some serious legwork.
Am stuck on 33rd floor, 77 Robinson in a major #powerfailure in Singapore’s #robinsonroad. Half hour and counting. Reports from others who say raffles place affected, people stuck in lift. #poweroutage #blackout
— Zubaidah Nazeer (@ZubNaz) June 1, 2018
There was a blackout in my office building in CBD area, had to walk down 28 floors of stairs to get to my meeting! Also check out my sweet sweet blackout selfie lol pic.twitter.com/ot7CCg8Aux
— Musical Houses (@musicalhouses) June 1, 2018
SP Group apologized for the inconvenience and has taken full responsibility for the disruption.
“We are tightening our procedures to prevent a recurrence of this incident,” they wrote in a statement.
“We know that our priority must be to ensure a safe and reliable power supply to Singapore at all times.”
