T O P S T O R Y RELATED LINKS
Black-out causes chaos in Auckland 12 June 2006
High winds which caused a power line to snap are behind a major power outage affecting more than half of Auckland this morning.
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without electricity and traffic lights across the central business district failed, causing chaos on the roads. Transpower spokesman Chris Roberts said an earth-wire at the Otahuhu substation - the main supplier of power going into Auckland from the south - had snapped. The earth-wire had fallen across the 110kv feed which was one of the two main feeds into Auckland. About half of Auckland - including most of the south and central Auckland - were without power, he said. Mr Roberts said he was unsure at this stage how many households had been affected by the outage but it was "a lot". Mr Roberts said 1000 megawatts of supply had been lost and at this time on a winter's morning, close to 2000 megawatts would normally be used. "So half the area has lost its load." Mr Roberts said crews were working on re-establishing the line but were securing the site first to ensure it was safe. Transpower has said it did not expect the power to be restored before midday. Mr Roberts said that nothing could be done to ease the chaos caused by traffic lights being out. "Having the traffic lights out may be something that just has to be lived with for the next while." The blackout stopped trains on the Auckland network. Back-up systems came into operation and allowed limited services to operate. "However, we haven't been able to bring trains into Britomart station," a spokesman for Ontrack said. "Passengers have been discharged at Newmarket and the Strand and subsequent services have been scheduled to operate to and from there. Auckland Airport had its own back-up generators as did most other major users such as hospitals, he said. Mr Roberts said the situation would still have arisen even if Transpower had high-voltage power lines from South Waikato to Otahuhu. Mr Roberts said there had been about 50 similar incidents in the South Island during the night. "With the storm it is inevitable you are going to get some problems." Some buildings which were without power in Auckland's CBD were evacuated this morning. Police said that patrols were encountering "traffic lunacy" on the roads with motorists going the wrong way and doing u-turns. They appealed to motorists to exercise common-sense and use safe driving practices.
»PRINTABLE VERSION
»SUBSCRIBE TO FREE HEADLINES
»SUBSCRIBE TO ARCHIVESTUFF
Położenie Nowej Zelandii
W poniedziałek burza śnieżna nawiedziła Nową Zelandię. Niektóre jej obszary zostały pokryte 30-centymetrową pokrywą śniegu.

Z powodu obfitych opadów śniegu, zamknięte zostało lotnisko w Christchurch na Wyspie Południowej. Wstrzymane zostały także niektóre kursy autobusów.

W Auckland na Wyspie Północnej odnotowano przerwy w dostawie prądu - przerwany został przewód podstacji Otahuhu, która dostarcza prąd do wielu gospodarstw w tym mieście.

Średnie temperatury czerwca w Auckland wynoszą 12 stopni Celsjusza.