Gusty winds bring down over 500 electricity poles in DK, Udupi districts

A 33 kV supply tower was affected following gusty winds at Amchinadka in Puttur taluk of Dakshina Kannada district on Saturday.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Power supply went down after several electricity poles were brought down by gusty winds at Kallangala in Bantwal taluk of Dakshina Kannada district on Saturday.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Gusty winds that prevailed over coastal Karnataka caused power outage for several hours across the region on Saturday, even as the Mangalore Electricity Supply Company said it had a herculean task of restoring power supply when over 500 electricity poles got uprooted in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts on a single day.

Yeshwanth Kadri, a resident of Coconut Garden in Maroli, Mangaluru, said power supply that got affected at 4 p.m. in his area on Saturday was restored by 11 a.m. on Sunday. While no one responded on Mescom helpline 1912, telephone calls to jurisdictional Kulashekara branch office were not answered. When residents visited the branch office on Sunday, there was no one to attend to their complaints, he lamented.

A senior engineer from the Mescom said the gusty winds that swept the region, once at 4 p.m. and again at 6.30 p.m., brought down hundreds of electricity poles, even as several main supply lines got affected.

Deploying required number of personnel to attend such a massive disruption was a challenging task even as outsourced personnel for restoration teams were not available on Sunday. Still, the company could restore power supply in majority of the locations by deploying 46 teams in Dakshina Kannada alone, the official said.

Over 370 poles were damaged in Dakshina Kannada and nearly 130 were damaged in Udupi district, he said.

Meanwhile, a video was circulated on social media about Mescom personnel at Moodbidri branch office keeping the landline phone receiver off the hook on Sunday. When the person behind the camera, who said he visited the office to check why the landline phone has remained continuously ‘engaged,’ said a Mescom personnel kept the receiver back on the hook.

“Necessary action would be taken against the personnel,” said the senior engineer.