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Blackout snarls capital
Darkness falls: Residences in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta, are seen in total darkness on Sunday
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arkness falls: Residences in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta, are seen in total darkness on Sunday. Electricity transmission disruptions caused a major blackout for several hours in Greater Jakarta and parts of West and Central Java on Sunday.(JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
A massive power outage affecting millions of people in the western part of Java on Sunday plunged the capital into chaos, forcing train operators to disembark passengers and ordinary citizens to direct traffic at intersections.
The blackout — the largest in more than two decades — began at 11:50 a.m. in Jakarta and lasted for more than six hours, leaving most of the city’s buildings in darkness as night descended.
Commuter train services and the MRT were severely disrupted by the outage, with some passengers forced to disembark when trains suddenly stopped underground.
The MRT had to get passengers off four trains on lines between Bendungan Hilir and Istora, Istora and Bendungan Hilir, Lebak Bulus and Fatmawati and Fatmawati and Lebak Bulus, MRT corporate secretary Muhamad Kamaluddin said in a statement on Sunday. “Our back-up power can only support our stations, not the trains. The back-up power keeps the air circulating and emergency lamps on in the stations during the blackout,” he added.
One passenger, Ellyvia Trisnawati, told The Jakarta Post the train was passing Istora Station and heading to Dukuh Atas Station when the electricity went out. “The first five minutes after the electricity went off, the other passengers and I were still quietly waiting inside the motionless train. People were still taking pictures and children were running around inside the train,” she said.
“Ten minutes later, there was an announcement from the train driver, saying that we had to disembark the vehicle through an emergency exit at the front of the train.”
Congestion was reported in a number of intersections with all traffic lights having ceased to operate throughout the city and only a few officers — if any — available to direct traffic. With power out in homes across the city, people sought temporary refuge in soon-to-be overcrowded malls.
“Ciputat [in South Tangerang] to Pondok Indah Mall [in South Jakarta] took two hours, traffic everywhere, dysfunctional traffic lights, PIM parking full, mall looks like a market #matilampu [blackout],” wrote Twitter user
@mahadmadika.
The outage also affected businesses, disrupting banking services, including online payments at some vendors in shopping malls.
Cempaka Putih resident Sasya Purwanti had her ATM card declined by an EDC device while trying to pay a cashier. “I had no choice but to withdraw cash from an ATM machine. I even had to wait several minutes until the ATM machine could connect with the banking system and withdraw my money,” she explained.
In West Java’s capital city, Bandung, the blackout had also caused traffic snarls on some major thoroughfares and at some traffic lights. Some with the most severe jams were from Jl. Pasteur to Jl. Dr. Djundjunan, Jl. Merdeka to Jl. Aceh, Jl. Ir. H. Djuanda to Jl. Riau, Jl. Sumatera to Jl. Lembong and Jl. Ir. H. Djuanda to Jl. Dipatiukur and Jl. Siliwangi.
“The traffic lights went off, causing chaos at many intersections,” a resident named Christian said.
Another Bandung resident, Ijan Sofian, said the blackout reminded him of his childhood when he grew up in a house without electricity. He could not use his mobile phone because of bad signals caused by the power outage. He ran out of clean water because electricity was needed to pump it. “It felt like my childhood in the 1960s when I did not have electricity because only rich people did at that time,” the 77-year-old told the Post.
State-owned electricity firm PLN said it was still investigating the cause of the blackout.
It said that there was a disruption in the Ungaran-Pemalang transmission line in Central Java, which consequently caused another disruption in the Depok-Tasik transmission line in West Java. These resulted in power outages in three provinces: Jakarta, Banten and West Java.
In a press conference held about three hours after the electricity went out, PLN acting president director Sripeni Inten Cahyani said it would take more than five hours for the company to repair their system. “On behalf of the management and board of directors, I want to say that we are deeply sorry for putting our customers in such uncomfortable conditions,” she said.
“There was trouble on the SUTET line from Ungaran to Pemalang that caused the blackout in Jakarta, Banten and West Java. Now we’re prioritizing recovery in Suralaya with 2,800 megawatts of capacity and Muara Karang, which supplies electricity to Jakarta,” she added.
As of 6 p.m., some six hours after the electricity went out, Sripeni claimed that PLN had repaired electricity connections to about 50 percent of its customers in Jakarta and West Java.
The Sunday blackout was most likely the worst since 1997 when the islands of Java and Bali experienced a complete power outage for several hours. A partial blackout occurred also on Java and Bali in 2008. (nal/tru)
— Arya Dipa contributed to this story from Bandung
