Bird causes VECO, MCWD interruption

CEBU, Philippines - A dove that was electrocuted in a power line has caused thousands of people to have no power for at least two hours and five hours waterless yesterday morning in some parts of Metro Cebu.

Theresa Gonzales, spokesperson of the Visayan Electric Company (VECO), said that their crew had to remove the dove in order for power to be restored.

“The Jaclupan incident this morning was not a scheduled interruption. That was considered an emergency or unscheduled,” said Gonzales.

Due to the two-hour power interruption, the Jaclupan water facility of Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) was affected, causing five hours without water in areas near Jaclupan, Talisay City up to the Capitol area in Cebu City.

MCWD chief of operations Ernie Delco said that water distribution is affected when power is out.

“Mga five hours gyud usa na restored ang affected areas. Dugay man gud na mubalik ang tubig kung naay power interruption. It takes time pa para ma build up ang water tubig,” said Delco. (It took about five hours to restore water supply in affected areas. It takes time for water to build up.)

Delco said the problem could have been averted had their generator set in Jaclupan been running. Their generator was down since last week, aggravating the situation.

Delco said that a water supplier promised to fix the genset today. In the meantime, their General Services Office installed two mobile gen sets to augment their water production in Jaclupan.

Earlier, Astrophel Logarta, MCWD Production and Distribution department manager, said that their Jaclupan supply dropped by 10,000 cubic meters - from 30,000 cubic meters to 20,000 cubic meters a day - because the Jaclupan River dried up.

MCWD’s Jaclupan facility, which is the water district’s biggest source of water for Metro Cebu, serve consumers in some areas in the cities of Talisay, Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu and the municipalities of Consolacion and Liloan.

“This is a very hot summer. The evaporation is tremendous,” said Delco as he advised the public to store water in case of power failure that effects MCWD’s operations.

Delco added that their 101 year-old Buhisan dam can usually produce 10,000 cubic meter daily but with this summer it only produced less than a thousand cubic meter daily.

The water district has an average daily production of 180,000 cubic meters to serve its over 146,000 service connections. – (FREEMAN)