Mayotte sufferer of widespread energy outage | EUROtoday

A widespread energy outage hit Mayotte on Tuesday December 23 within the afternoon. “This Tuesday, December 23 at 2 p.m. [11 heures à Paris]a serious incident caused a widespread power cut throughout the department »reported the prefecture of the overseas department in a press release.

If the origin of this outage is not yet clearly established, according to Electricité de Mayotte (EDM), it is a fault in an evacuation transformer at the Longoni power station, in the north, which led to breakdowns “cascading” throughout all the community from 1:35 p.m.

“We had several restart attempts which proved unsuccessful, but it was only around 4:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. that the restarts were able to stabilize”defined the corporate to Agence France-Presse. All accessible technicians have been despatched for area operations.

In a second press launch, the prefecture reported that “the scenario is evolving[ait] step by step ” and that “the power supply [était] recovering, sector by sector ». “At this stage, 92% of subscribers have been supplied with electricity, or around 50,000 homes”added the same source. Electricité de Mayotte hopes that the entire archipelago will have electricity restored before the end of the day.

Disrupted communications and water cuts

The prefecture also emphasized continuing, in conjunction with the Mayotte hospital center (CHM), “continuous monitoring of the situation, particularly of people hospitalized at home”adding that at this stage “the situation [était] controlled ».

Communications were disrupted all afternoon due to lack of power to relay antennas. The inhabitants of 101^e French department also suffered water cuts due to the impact of the incident on drinking water production and storage infrastructure. Regarding water production, “the return to the normal cycle is underway” And “punctual and unforeseen outages may still occur in the next twenty-four hours”according to the prefecture, which also affirmed that the telephone network was “in the recovery phase throughout the department”.

The prefecture called for telephone networks not to be saturated and to avoid tampering with electrical connections until the network is fully restored.