Chennai: Just as Chennai residents were beginning to recover from weeks of heat-related power disruptions, strong winds and evening rain on Thursday triggered fresh outages across the city and suburbs. Many areas were left without electricity and this triggered protests in some neighbourhoods.Falling of trees, hoardings on live cables interrupted power supply to several areas particularly in southern suburbs, while tripping of different feeders were cited as reason for power cuts in the city. Across the city and suburbs, 20 failures were reported since Thursday evening.Sembakkam residents suffered without power supply since 4.30 pm and blocked Tambaram-Velachery road around 8 pm. “Kids have exams the next day, how can they study without electricity,” asked a resident. The protestors complained that local section officer were not available over phone and said the field personnel left the work midway prolonging the agony of the residents.However, senior officials said the team was diverted to attend to a major fault as high-tension overhead cable was cut due to falling of a coconut tree.“A HT line powering Gowrivakkam feeder from Madambakkam substation snapped, while another pin insulator at VGP Srinivasa Nagar feeder also failed. Arkeshwarar fedder, VGP Ponnagar feeder, Velusamy Nagar feeder also fault tripped, leading to interruption in power supply to Chitlpakkam, Sembakkam, Perungalathur. In Sholinganallur too, a HT line snapped,” said the official and added that the faults were rectified overnight to restore power supply.In Maduravoyal, a gigantic hoarding pole fell on the double-pole structure, suspending power supply to the cold storage facilities in Koyambedu. In the core city, Perambur, Anna Nagar, KK Nagar, Adyar too faced issues due to failures of the distribution network.TNPDCL officials said that interruptions were long in areas like Mugalivakkam and Kundrathur that are powered by overhead lines, as they snapped due to falling of trees and hoardings because of heavy winds.
