EDM restores power to northern Cabo Delgado

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EDM restores power to northern Cabo Delgado

4:50 CAT | 26 Feb 2018

Notícias

Mozambique’s publicly-owned electricity company, EDM, has made temporary repairs to the power line supplying the northernmost five districts in Cabo Delgado province which allowed power to be restored on Saturday night – but definitive repairs will cost 50 million meticais (about 820,000 US dollars).

The power was cut to Nangade, Mueda, Muidumbe, Palma and Mocimboa da Praia districts on the morning of 19 February, when the swollen Messalo river knocked down a pylon.

Emergency work to repair the line began that same day and lasted until Saturday. Since it was impossible to take trucks, cranes and other heavy equipment to the site where the pylon was downed, EDM had to recruit about 100 local residents to move the material manually.

The work involved wading through the river – this meant the work had to stop at nightfall, for fear of crocodile attacks. Continued rain during the repair work also slowed matters down.

Wooden gantries were rigged together on the spot, and were used to lift up the fallen pylon and all the cables. This phase of the work was only possible with the arrival of helicopters on Friday.

The EDM director of transmission, Feliciano Massingue, said the arrangement is only temporary and five pylons need to be moved, in order to ensure that they will not be knocked down if there is any further flooding on the Messalo.

Moving and strengthening each pylon will cost at least 10 million meticais, said Massingue, giving a total cost of 50 million meticais for the definitive repairs.

The temporary repairs have already cost EDM three million meticais (including accommodation, food, fuel, communications and the payment of the casual workers recruited locally). In addition the almost six days of power cut to the northern districts represents about a million meticais that will not be paid by EDM’s 13,000 clients in those districts.

Source: AIM