Just reported on national radio news. Anybody got anymore info? They did NOT say anything about causes like a storm. 40 Mil people without power, some now being restored.

-- wondering (wondering@nottoo.far), December 10, 1999

Answers

MANILA (December 10, 1999 9:38 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - A power outage blacked out Manila and the rest of the main Philippine island of Luzon late Friday, leaving up to 40 million people without electricity for at least an hour.

The state utility National Power Corp. said "technical trouble" shut down three Luzon power plants with a combined generating capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts.

Electricity was slowly being restored in the northern Manila suburb of Quezon city about 70 minutes later, and power was back in the northern resort of Baguio within 15 minutes of the outage, radio station DZBB said.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said he convened the government's disaster response council following the outage.

"I talked to the President (Joseph Estrada) a minute ago. He was in contact with Energy Secretary Mario Tiaqui. He has been informed it was a trip off of the power source in Pangasinan," Mercado told the station.

"There's nothing to worry about."

The large island of Luzon was blacked out starting at about 8:15 p.m. local time. It tied up traffic at major Manila intersections as traffic lights failed.

Flight operations were not disrupted at Manila airport which switched to its backup emergency power source, aviation officials said.

National Power official Jun Panes told a radio station that the Sual 1 and 2 plants in the northern province of Pangasinan and one other plant in Quezon province south of Manila had "tripped" one after the other.

"More than 1,000 megawatts were taken out of the grid," he added.

Luzon, the main island of the Philippine archipelago, is home to about 40 million people, or 53 percent of the national population.

The Philippines last experienced widespread power outages during an acute energy crisis in the early 1990s.

-- Joe Public (jpublic@webtv.com), December 10, 1999.

This is on abcnews.com in the raw news section. Sorry, don't know how to linkMANILA, Philippines (AP) _ A power failure hit most of the main Philippine island of Luzon late Friday, leaving tens of millions of people in the dark. National Power Corp. spokesman Jun Panes said the blackout was caused by the tripping of circuit breakers at three power plants _ two in Pangasinan province to the north and one in Quezon province in the south.

"This is just a technical problem, not related to Y2K, because our system is prepared for Y2K," he said, referring to the millennium computer bug which could cause some computers to malfunction in the new year.

Power was restored to most of Manila within about three hours.

Energy Secretary Mario Tiaoqui ruled out sabotage as the cause of the blackout. "It was a simple plant failure," he said.

Police and military officials said no major problems were reported as a result of power loss.

-- Familyman (prepare@home.com), December 10, 1999.

Most common refrain now thru the next 10 years:

"This is NOT a Y2K problem!"

-- denial (on@the.wall), December 10, 1999.

Gotta be squirrels. Gotta be. I done read about it on the internet.

Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), December 10, 1999.

Kook,

Could be bats. Dem bats is smart... they use SONAR.

-- trouble (we're@inforit.com), December 10, 1999.

Where's the Squirrel King? I'm sure he and his rodent henchmen are behind this.

-- wondering (wondering@nottoo.far), December 10, 1999.

Victory!!!The Final parts of My Plan are now in place Worldwide!!!My Rodent Brotherhood is firmly in control of the World!!!You pink and brown Furless Apes just don't know it yet!!!We will Conquer all!!! Long Live the Rodent Revolution!!!Viva El Squirrel King!!!Today the Phillipines, Tommorow, the World!!!

-- The Squirrel King (StillNuts@upina.Tree), December 10, 1999.

Its very unlikely that this is Y2K related in any way. However IF it is Y2K related then "Electricity was slowly being restored in the northern Manila suburb of Quezon city about 70 minutes later, and power was back in the northern resort of Baguio within 15 minutes of the outage" shows that FOF would not be a problem.

Malcolm

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), December 10, 1999.

I dunno Squirrel King... I heard that the Phillipinos have a really great recipe for squirrel gumbo. You may become an endangered species yet. :-D

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), December 10, 1999.

Actually, my intel sources say that the Squirrel King is firmly in control in the Phillipines. He's got the Air Force, Army and the Media on his side. Makes sense in some twistedly cosmic way I figure...So much for FOF....

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan101st@Aol.com), December 10, 1999.

And there was mass panic. Bank runs, rioting, crowds beaking into stores and stealing what food was left on the shelf.......

Oh, that didn't happen? Can you believe it? The people just took it in stride? Well so much for the theory that people are prone to panic.

-- for real (for@real.com), December 10, 1999.

Sorry, there are no squirrels in the Philippines. I doubt there ever were, but had there been they'd have all gotten killed by now. All forms of wild animal life are killed on site there. No joke. I'm just glad I'm not the sensitive-type as far as cruelty to animals is concerned.

I agree with the post that if this was Y2K related it is good news that FOF worked so quickly. But it seems unlikely that it was Y2K related, unless it resulted from the indirect Y2K problem of glitches caused by remediation.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), December 10, 1999.

Why didn't they just run it manually and get power back up in a matter of a few minutes? Seems reasonable to me since this is all we've heard for the last 2-3 years.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), December 10, 1999.

I bet if that outage lasted a day or two there would have been panic.

-- (Polly@troll.com), December 10, 1999.

It really sucks that they can fix these problems so fast! Damn, I guess society isn't going to crumble after all.

Invest now in the new "Spam Helper". A hundred different recipes for all that stored Spam. Don't let it go waste!

-- for real (for@real.com), December 10, 1999.

""" there's nothing to worry about"""

hahaheehee!

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 10, 1999.

I lived in the Philippines in 1991 and 1992 for a 14-month period working as a missionary. I lived on the Island of Luzon that includes Manilla. Without fail, the electricity in Baguio City where I lived would go off around noon and come back on about 3 hours later. This was a daily occurrence. Every store in town had portable generators. The Philippines does not generate enough electricity during peak hours for the island of Luzon. It was no big deal.

I'm not saying this outage was not something new or y2k related and I am definitely not a polly (bought 22 acres, drilled a well with a hand pump, mega bags of rice and beans, etc.). Just thought I would throw my 2 cents worth in on this one since I actually lived there.

Time for another trip to Sam's.

-- James Chancellor, PE (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), December 10, 1999.

I have been to the Phillippines at least 6 or 7 times. The power would go out there quite often. That's why they have people who still deliver ice. Sometimes it would go out for a few hours, and some times it could stay out in certain areas for day's.

You got used to it after a while.Of course no one I know of ever froze to death from the cold. Most of the monkey meat was cooked over an open fire anyway. And we even got used to warm San Miguel beer. I still don't like it if it's cold. Just doesn't taste the same.

-- ~***~ (~***~@earth.ebe), December 10, 1999.

Pollytroll, there would not have been panic if the electricity would have stayed off for a day or two. Were you joking or do you not know Filipinos? They are not a panicky people at all; and are used to infrastructure problems anyway.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), December 10, 1999.

Gotta be squirrels. Gotta be. I done read about it on the internet. Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), December 10, 1999.

Could be frogs! I fixed a ladies electric water heater the other day and found a frog. He was stretched between a hot and a neutral. Was what you might call a crispy critter, and well preserved.

And they've got frogs in the Phillippines.

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), December 10, 1999.

I lived and worked in the PI on and off for a couple of years in the late 80's, early 90's. Power went off all the time as others have said, and it was no big deal.

Once, in Mindoro, the power was off for 3 weeks when a main power station went down and they didn't have the parts.

Filipinos are used to it. They are'nt prone to burning & looting, as will happen in LA and other places very soon.

-- Paul (Paul in@the PI.com), December 10, 1999.

MAN

-- (.......@.......), January 03, 2000.