From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has said that a major blackout has occurred in Gunduwawa Village, Gezawa Local Government Area, Kano State as well as Yobe and Jigawa states.
In a statement, the General Manager, Public Affairs of TCN, Ndidi Mbah, said that a trailer carrying a container drove into the base of TCN’s tower T16 located in Gunduwawa Village, Gezawa Local Government Area, Kano State destroying the tower and causing outage in several communities.
About 9.28am on August 11, 2024, the Kano–Hadejia 132kV transmission line tripped, losing about 16.6MW. Trial re-closure of the line to enable continued bulk power supply failed, prompting the immediate dispatch of a patrol team to survey the line. The team, she said, found that a trailer truck carrying a container had hit tower T16 situated in Gunduwawa and destroyed two legs of the tower causing it to buckle and fall.
The incident caused the tripping of the line, cutting off supply as the tower fell on the container and hit a residential building, damaging a part of it. No life was lost and the incident has been reported to Gezawa Divisional Police Station.
and the driver has also been detained.
Unfortunately, she stated, this has put Hadejia, Gumel, Gagarawa, Nguru, Mallammadori, Birniwa, Kafin-Hausa, Auyo, Guri, Kaugama, Taura, Garki, Maigatari, Babura, Kirikasamma, Machina Local Government Areas in Jigawa and Yobe states in darkness, and presently, there is no alternative source of bulk power supply to two of TCN’s substations—–the Gagarawa and Hadejia substations.
According to Mbah, this means that the affected areas will not have supply until the tower is repaired.
“TCN pledges to do everything possible to quickly dismantle the damaged tower, re-erect a new one and restring the lines to enable the resumption of bulk power supply to the two substations to enable the distribution companies (DisCos) offtake power for its customers within the affected areas. A contractor has already been contracted to reconstruct the tower, he is expected to mobilize to the site of the incident today” she further explained. ENDS