Almost 700,000 homes were left without electricity due to an error at a power station in Taiwan

Almaty. August 16. Silkroadnews – Almost 700,000 homes were left without electricity due to an error at a power station in Taiwan, the economics minister resigned, “South China Morning Post” wrote.
“More than 668,000 homes as well as office buildings and department stores across Taiwan were plunged into darkness on Tuesday after a human error at a power station caused a massive electricity outage. The outage had affected 17 cities and counties across Taiwan. Economics Minister Lee Chih-kung took responsibility for the incident and tendered his resignation to Premier”, the report said.
According to the government-run Taiwan Power Corporation, the incident occurred around 4:50 p.m. local time, when six substations at the Datan power station in Taoyuan, south of Taipei, were cut off, which resulted in a 4 million kilowatt cutback in electricity supplies.
“The island’s emergency services were inundated with calls for help, some from people who had become trapped in lifts because of the outage, local media reported. The New Taipei fire service said it received more than 100 calls in two hours after the blackout”, the publication reads.
As a result of a power outage, some government facilities were temporarily left without electricity, however, this did not affect the work of the presidential administration. There were also no disruptions to the energy supply of hospitals, airports, railways and highways, although in several parts of the Greater Taipei Area, which includes Taipei, Keelung and New Taipei City, the traffic was virtually paralyzed due to failure of signals.
The preliminary data showed the power outage was caused by operational errors in the supply of natural gas to the power plant by the oil company CPC Corporation, Taiwan.