PHUKET: Tourists on the island of Samui will be hoping the lights come on again at midnight tonight after more than 36 hours without power.
Electricity was cut off to Samui and the neighboring island of Phangan at 9am yesterday in a planned outage designed to upgrade an undersea cable.
But when the switch was flicked to turn on the power again, the entire supply to Samui dropped out and stayed out.
Promchote Traivate, Director of Tourism and Sport for Surat Thani province, said: ''We hope it comes on at midnight tonight and stays on.''
Khun Chote, who once held the same position on Phuket, said he had been told that the engineer capable of repairing the cable had to travel from Chiang Rai, north of Bangkok, to Samui.
''The blackout was not good for the restaurants,'' Khun Chote said. ''But resorts all have alternative power and so whatever problems there may have been were limited.''
Khun Chote said that because businesses had been warned about the planned outage, they were better prepared and able to cope with the unplanned outage.
Samui and Phangan have experienced unplanned outages as well in the past.
An increase in the quantity of power for the islands is expected to solve the problem permanently in March.
Electricity was cut off to Samui and the neighboring island of Phangan at 9am yesterday in a planned outage designed to upgrade an undersea cable.
But when the switch was flicked to turn on the power again, the entire supply to Samui dropped out and stayed out.
Promchote Traivate, Director of Tourism and Sport for Surat Thani province, said: ''We hope it comes on at midnight tonight and stays on.''
Khun Chote, who once held the same position on Phuket, said he had been told that the engineer capable of repairing the cable had to travel from Chiang Rai, north of Bangkok, to Samui.
''The blackout was not good for the restaurants,'' Khun Chote said. ''But resorts all have alternative power and so whatever problems there may have been were limited.''
Khun Chote said that because businesses had been warned about the planned outage, they were better prepared and able to cope with the unplanned outage.
Samui and Phangan have experienced unplanned outages as well in the past.
An increase in the quantity of power for the islands is expected to solve the problem permanently in March.
The one man in Thailand capable of fixing the cable is in Chiang Rai - about as far away as possible without leaving the country - sounds like good planning!
Posted by Logic on December 5, 2012 20:45