Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1504427
4 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 26 JULY 2023 4 NEWS Blackouts across Malta KARL AZZOPARDI A power cut was reported at Mater Dei Hospital in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Sources who spoke to this newspaper said generators failed to kick-in, leaving a number of wards in sweltering heat. Replying to questions by this newspaper, a health ministry spokesperson confirmed Ma- ter Dei Hospital experienced a brief power outage. "Whilst power was maintained in critical equipment in areas such as ITU, NPICU and theaters, other parts of the hospital had an outage for 52 minutes before the in-house en- gineering team remedied the situation and all normal activity continued," a spokesperson said. He said no clinical incident occurred as a re- sult of the fault. The matter has been identified, and recti- fied, with test carried out on the network be- ing successful. "An investigation into the incident is being conducted," he said. Patients and their family who spoke to this newspaper said the power cuts were reported at around 1:30am. Mater Dei Hospital was left without any electricity for around 50 minutes, before elec- tricity was restored at around 2:15am. Power cuts were also reported at a number of localities across Malta, with Naxxar residents spending the night without any electricity. Residents who spoke to this newspaper said the power outage started at 8pm, and electric- ity was restored at 8:30am. Power cuts were also reported in Zejtun, with outages reported at around 3am. Enemalta CEO Jonathan Cardona said Malta hit a new record of consumption on Monday, with peak load being reached between 2pm and 3pm. He said over the past week 65 faults devel- oped on the high-tension cable system – 56 in Malta and nine in Gozo. Cardona said 46 faults were repaired – 37 in Malta and nine Gozo – and work was ongoing to repair the remaining 19 faults. Mater Dei Hospital left without power for around 50 minutes after generators failure Demand for electricity on Tuesday hit record of 663MW Power outage leaves Mater Dei Hospital without any electricity for around 50 minutes after generators fail to kick in • Investigation into the incident being carried out by health authorities CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 She insisted the ministry's main focus was to resolve the situation without delay and to mitigate disruptions caused by the ongoing power cuts. Dalli said other ministries were actively offering their support and assistance in han- dling the crisis. Malta has been blighted by widespread power outages as a result of the persistent heat- wave. The situation even led to areas ending up without water in their taps for several hours on Tuesday. Earlier on Tuesday, Grech called on the Prime Minister to declare a national emergency and make all public resources, including the police and the army, available to alleviate the hardship on consumers hard- hit by the power outages. Dalli was speaking at a tech- nical briefing with Enemalta engineers held on Tuesday af- ternoon. Once again she said compen- sation will be given but provid- ed no details, insisting these will be given in the "coming days". Company officials said the ex- pected cooling of air tempera- tures from Wednesday did not necessarily mean power outag- es will stop. The power grid still needed to be stabilised until the remain- ing faults were repaired, Ene- malta CEO Jonathan Cardona said. The temperature is expect- ed to drop to around 34°C on Wednesday after surpassing 40°C for the past week and a record-equalling 42.7°C on Monday. Since 17 July, Enemalta saw 81 high-voltage cable faults, of which 53 have been repaired, Cardona said. "While the temperature will drop, there is no guarantee we won't see more faults. Of course, we hope there will be less stress on the cables, and that we can repair all the faults," Cardona said, adding that he was hopeful the situa- tion would be resolved by the weekend. He said demand for electric- ity on Tuesday hit another re- cord of 663MW, a day after the previous record of 649MW was set. Cardona denied claims En- emalta had a shortage of high-voltage cables. Enemalta CEO Jonathan Cardona said the power grid still needs to be stabilised until the remaining faults are repaired