GPL blames tree-clearing mishap for city outages

Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) says fallen branches from a city tree clearing exercise yesterday caused a short circuit on one of the main feeders out of its Kingston plant, resulting in several outages.

The incident occurred at approximately 9.37am at New Market and Carmichael streets, where the tree clearing exercise was being done by the Mayor and City Council.

A GPL statement said areas in Kingston, Water Street, Lombard Street and Cummingsburg were affected. While power was restored to the areas within an hour, GPL noted that some consumers were without electricity until 1pm as the network was being repaired.

As a result of the disruption, GPL urged that entities involved in tree-clearing exercises communicate their intentions to the company before-hand in order to avoid any damage being caused to the power network. It is advising private and public entities seeking to pursue such activities to make contact with its Operations Division on telephone 227-4022 to avoid similar occurrences in the future.