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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider Luzon devider 6-foot long snake causes blackout in North Cotabato

6-foot long snake causes blackout in North Cotabato

Published Oct 12, 2020 09:45 am

KIDAPAWAN CITY – A six-foot long snake caused a total blackout in the service areas of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative (Cotelco-Main) in North Cotabato for more than an hour on Monday, October 12, an executive from the cooperative said.

Cotelco-Main General Manager Engineer Godofredo Homez said the snake came out from the woods, crawled and climbed slowly up one of the wooden electric poles in Barangay Meohaw, here, past 3 a.m., on Monday.

He said that when the snake touched Cotelco’s cut out line, the power tripped off several times until the crew decided to shut down the entire Mount Apo 69-kilovolt transmission line to prevent further damage, around 4:10 a.m.

The snake immediately died and fell on the road, the manager added.

The “fault power line”, according to Homez, was part of the Mount Apo 69-kilovolt transmission line, and the blackout affected all of Cotelco’s service areas.

Cotelco has at least 96,000 power connections in North Cotabato.

Homez said that it was the first time that a snake caused a total blackout in the more than 20 years he has been working for Cotelco.

“It was extraordinary.   We didn’t expect this to happen, this was the first time I experienced this in my more than 20 years working with Cotelco,” he stressed.

Meantime, Homez said that power interruptions are sometimes caused by birds sitting on their electric lines.  Some of them would touch Cotelco’s cut-off line which causes power to trip off.  

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