Residents swamp hotlines; power back within an hour
By Sue-Ann Chia
A WIDE area of Singapore, mainly in the north and west of the island, was hit by a sudden blackout late last night.
From just after 11.30pm, The Straits Times was flooded with calls from residents in Bukit Timah, Choa Chu Kang, Marsiling, Bukit Batok and Adam Road saying they were affected.
Students at the Nanyang Technological University hostels said that they were also hit by the power failure.
It was past 1am when a Power Supply spokesman confirmed that the lights started going out in areas such as Choa Chu Kang, Bukit Timah, Bukit Panjang and Jalan Bahar from around 11.30pm and that power was restored within an hour.
At press time, the cause of the blackout was not yet known, and was still being investigated.
Several callers to the newsroom complained that they could not get information from official sources, with calls to the 24-hour Power Supply hotline going unanswered.
One caller, who identified herself as a Ms Cheng living in the Bukit Timah area, said: 'The blackout happened while I was reading the newspapers. I tried calling Power Supply, but I couldn't get through.'
Another caller said she tried calling the hotline 'more than 30 times' with no success. 'What's the point of calling it a hotline when you can't get through? It's unhelpful,' she said.
The Power Supply spokesman said the hotline was manned, but it had simply been overwhelmed by the huge number of calls.
People also called the police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force, both of which said they received 'hundreds' of calls from concerned residents.
Early this morning the police were working with Power Supply officials to establish the cause. A police spokesman said that officers were put on the streets, but no major incidents occurred in the hour or so that the lights were out.
Many callers to The Straits Times said they were caught off guard.
Madam Lim Sai Gern, 82, who lives in semi-detached house off Farrer Road, said the lights went out at 11.45pm, and came on briefly around midnight.
'I thought our fuses had blown, but when I went to switch the lights back on, nothing happened,' she said.
'I was so afraid I'd fall down the stairs, so I grabbed a couple of candles and a torchlight.'
Bukit Batok resident Jason Low, 32, said: 'We were watching TV when everything went out.'
It took him a few minutes before he realised his entire block and the surrounding areas were affected as well.
Most people took the blackout in stride - once they managed to get a few candles going.
Some even managed to engage in a bit of revelry.
Zhou Junlin, 22, second-year undergraduate who lives in Bukit Batok, was doing his homework when the lights went out.
When he stuck his head out of his window, he noticed that people at the coffee shop below 'seemed quite happy'.
Over at the Nanyang Technological University, which was partly hit, undergrad Koh Yihui, 23, said the blackout 'was a bit of a novelty because it never happened to me before'.
Elsewhere, people who could not rustle up enough candle power resorted to ingenious means to throw a little light on the situation.
A Namly Avenue resident said: 'Some of our neighbours switched on their cars' headlights to shine at their living room.' Additional reporting by Azrin Asmani, Lynn Lee and Leslie Koh
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