Quake cuts power lines in Northern Luzon

MANILA, Philippines — Parts of Ilocos and the Cordilleras experienced power interruption after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Luzon yesterday.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) reported that power outages affected the franchise area of the La Union Electric Cooperative (LUELCO).

The NGCP said the Bacnotan-Bulala 69-kiloVolt line in La Union tripped at around 8:44 a.m.

Normalization of loads came after the line was energized at about 1:07 p.m.

The NGCP said initial investigation showed that a line segment owned and maintained by LUELCO tripped during the earthquake.

Power interruptions were also experienced in parts of Pangasinan, Benguet, Tarlac and Abra. The affected lines were immediately restored.

Lines and facilities serving the National Capital Region were not affected.  No private distribution utilities recorded tripping, according to the Department of Energy.

The DOE said all power generation plants were under normal operations except for the HEDCOR hydropower plants in Mountain Province that went on outage due to the earthquake.

All downstream oil industry facilities reported no damage and were operational.