Hudhud batters Andhra Pradesh: Restoring power a tough task

HYDERABAD: With coastal Andhra Pradesh residents living in darkness and their mobile phone services crippled due to the massive disruption in power lines caused by Cyclone Hudhud, officials are doing their best to restore power supply in parts of the Port City by the early hours of Tuesday.

"We are trying our best to restore power supply at least in parts of the city by midnight or early hours of Tuesday," AP energy principal secretary Ajay Jain told TOI. According to sources, about 5 per cent of the power in the Port City, which is largely for emergency services, could be restored by Tuesday. As per the initial estimate on Monday night, two 400 KV substations, ten 220 KV substations and 25 132 KV substations have been crippled due to the cyclone. Nearly 20,000 electricity poles have been damaged, of which 5,682 have been completely uprooted. "Power at the central stations can be restored but we will not transmit it as the local lines have snapped in many areas with the broken wires landing on apartments, shops and roads, posing the danger of mass electrocution. Hence, for normalcy to return on the power front, it will take a few days," the sources said.

By Monday night, the 2000 MW NTPC Simhadri thermal station was restored by linking it to the Vemagiri 400 KV sub-station. "By Tuesday morning, power will be supplied from the 132 KV Tuni — Koruprolu, Parawada & Gajuwaka and the 132 KV Pithapuram — Brandix — Gajuwaka substations as well as from the Parwada — 220 KV Vizag switching station and Gajuwaka — 220 KV Vizag switching station. Once we get clearance from the field engineers that the system was safe, the supply will be restored," Ajay Jain said.

While the power disruption in Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts was near total, it was partial in Srikakulam. For repairing the power lines in these districts, nearly 2,000 engineers, operation and maintenance staff and linesmen have been rushed in from Tirupati, Vijayawada, Guntur and Ongole. Meanwhile, AP is also seeking help from Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha so that electricity in the coastal districts can be restored at the earliest.

Mobile service operators are waiting for the power supply to be restored so that their cell towers can become operational. The towers can also operate on diesel generators but even that is scare or not available in the Port City and elsewhere in the AP coastal areas as Hudhud had damaged the retail petrol and diesel outlets. For now, Vizag residents are able to be reached only through the landlines.

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