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🇮🇩 Indonesia /Crime & Justice

Police: Extreme Weather Suspected Cause of Sumatra Blackout

From Tempo · () Indonesian

Translated from Indonesian, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Official statement Under investigation
  • Indonesian police suspect extreme weather caused a widespread blackout across Sumatra on May 22.
  • The power outage affected multiple provinces, including Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau, Jambi, and parts of South Sumatra.
  • Investigators are examining a snapped high-voltage transmission cable in Muaro Jambi as a key piece of evidence.

Indonesian police are investigating extreme weather as the likely cause of a massive blackout that plunged several regions of Sumatra into darkness on Friday, May 22. The power outage disrupted electricity supply across a vast area, affecting provinces from Aceh in the north to parts of South Sumatra.

According to Deputy Chief of the National Police Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim Polri) Inspector General Nunung Syaifuddin, the disruption is believed to have been triggered by adverse weather conditions. These conditions reportedly caused the electricity transmission system to disconnect from the Sumatera grid, leading to instability in frequency and voltage. This instability then caused a cascading series of power plant trips, resulting in the widespread blackout.

The disruption was allegedly triggered by bad weather factors, which resulted in the transmission system going out of the Sumatera electricity interconnection.

— Nunung SyaifuddinDeputy Chief of the National Police Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim Polri) explaining the suspected cause of the blackout.

Investigators have focused their attention on a specific point of failure: a snapped high-voltage transmission cable (SUTET) between towers 175-176 in Muaro Jambi Regency. While the transmission towers themselves appear structurally sound, the snapped cable is considered a critical clue. Initial findings suggest the cable broke suddenly, possibly due to the extreme weather, with witnesses reporting an explosion prior to the power outage in the vicinity of the transmission towers.

The police are exploring several possibilities for the cable's failure, including mechanical factors like friction and wind, heat from loose connections, and stress from extreme weather. The severed cable has been sent to the Indonesian National Police Forensic Laboratory Center (Puslabfor Polri) for further analysis. The national electricity company, PT PLN, previously reported the system disturbance, attributing the outage to bad weather impacting the grid's substations and transmission systems.

So there was an explosion first, then a power outage in the area around the transmission tower.

— WitnessDescribing the events leading up to the snapped transmission cable.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Tempo in Indonesian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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