ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 29 October) – A power outage hit Marawi City, all 39 towns of Lanao del Sur and three towns of Lanao del Norte for over eight hours on Thursday.

An acacia mangium tree that fell and toppled the 138-kilovolt line inside the Agus 1 hydroelectric power plant  in Marawi City caused the outage, Elizabeth Ladaga, spokesperson of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines Mindanao Office said in a phone interview.

The incident occurred at 6:28 a.m. and affected the substation of Agus 1 and Agus 2 in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur, Ladaga said.

Aside from Marawi and Lanao del Sur, the outage also hit Pantar, Balo-i and Pantao Ragat towns in Lanao del Norte, which relies on power from the Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative.

Ladaga said the NGCP had reenergized the substation’s VTie line  at 2:45 p.m. after the National Power Corp. replaced the damaged equipment inside the Agus 1 switchyard in Marawi.

The NGCP engineering team also performed ride-on corrective works at Agus 1 substation, she added.

Lieutenant Michael Kent Go, officer-in-charge of the police office of Pantao Ragat said in a phone call that power was restored in the town at 2:51 p.m. Thursday.

Dr. Shalimar Rakiin, chief of Amai Pakpak Medical Center (APMC) in Marawi City in a phone interview said the outage did not affect them as they have three 500-KVA power generators and another one with a 750-KVA capacity.

“We have prepared additional 800 liters of fuel in case the power outage will last 24 hours,” she said.

She added the hospital needs a stable power supply because it is attending to COVID-19 patients. (Richel Umel/MindaNews)