Power shortage forces MRT to reduce service

(Updated 11:09 p.m.) The Metro Rail Transit’s (MRT) operation from its Guadalupe station going south toward Taft Avenue was temporarily halted for almost two hours on Tuesday night due to lack of electricity supply. The power disruption took place at around 8 p.m., John Castriciones, over-all supervisor of the Action Center of the Department of Transportation and Communications, told GMANews.TV over the phone. As a result, its trains were only able to serve passengers from North Avenue to Guadalupe and back. The trains resumed normal operation before 10:00 p.m., according to an official at the MRT Control Center. “There was a reported disruption in the power supply in the areas from Guadalupe to Magallanes which may have caused the undervoltage," Castriciones said, citing information from MRT Transport Development Officer Oliver Casili. Two trains have abruptly stopped somewhere between the MRT’s Guadalupe and Magallanes stations, but passengers have been evacuated safely, Castriciones said. He added that the agency has yet to talk to officials of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), which supplies power to the MRT trains. Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga said in a separate phone interview that a problem with the electric load in the Sucat substation of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) may have caused the power shortage. The NGCP runs the country’s power grid, dispatching electricity from power plants and allotting them to distribution utilities such as Meralco, the Philippines’ largest electric company. “At 7:37, we received information that a trouble occurred in the NGCP Sucat substation which affected several areas in the southern sector. Power has been restored to some areas after we shifted the load from Sucat to the Dolores-Zapote subsectors," Zaldarriaga said. In a subsequent text message, Zaldarriaga said power has been restored in all affected areas at around 10:20 p.m. However, he was uncertain if the problem in the Sucat substation indeed caused the power shortage for the MRT trains, adding that information is being verified as of posting time. As a result of the disruption, the schedules of trains were slightly adjusted, with the last train from the North Avenue station departing at about 10:15 p.m. while the last train from the Taft Avenue station departing at about 10:45 p.m. The last train departs the North Avenue station normally at 10:00 p.m., while another departs the Taft Avenue station at 10:30 pm. - RJAB Jr/KBK, GMANews.TV