BLACKOUT HITS ABRA AFTER TRANSFORMER CATCHES FIRE

October 21, 2022 Provincial

BANGUED, Abra – A province-wide blackout hit Abra Wednesday noon when one of the Abra Electric Cooperative’s 5 MVA transformers at its head office in Bangued, the province’s capital, caught fire. Abreco general manager Loreto Seares Jr. though said power was restored already along the Pidigan line in
lowland Abra two hours after the unfortunate incident while promising a replacement of the 5MVA transformer is arriving on Friday.

Abreco Technical Services Department manager Engr. Joker Damian said they have launched an investigation into the fire incident that gutted the 5MVA transformer because he vowed it has been on normal condition because regular checks and maintenance servicing have been conducted on it. As of 3:20PM Wednesday, power had been restored in Bangued town, the Abreco general manager said.

Seares Jr. promised an immediate restoration of power in all of Abra the moment the replacement of the busted transformer is installed after it arrives Friday in Bangued. He promised ecstatic consumer-members, who began to worry of a long-standing brownout in the province, this technical glitch an early
solution as Abreco is undergoing reorganization after Seares Jr. regained his post when the Supreme Court reinstated him earlier this year. NEA since Seares Jr.’s reinstatement had been assisting Abreco, which had been wrought by huge fiscal woes in the past, to rise up again on its feet, “something I most
appreciate and thankful about,” the electric cooperative general manager said.

Artemio A. Dumlao/ABN