Power begins to return after outage in Bali
The outage was caused by disruption in the subsea cables which connect the electricity system in Bali with Java island. - AFP
JAKARTA: Power has started returning in most areas affected by an outage in Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Friday (May 2), officials said, and efforts were continuing to fully restore services.
A power outage hit a number of regions of Bali on Friday from 4 p.m. local time (0800 GMT), said state utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara.
The island's airport was also impacted but inbound and outbound flight traffic continued using backup generators, the airport's general manager Ahmad Syaugi Shahab said in a statement, although several departures had experienced delays.
Images shared on social media showed road traffic holdups in Bali as a result of the outage and long lines at the airport check-in counters.
Power began to return a few hours after the blackout.
"State utility PLN managed to restore most of the electricity supply in Bali," the spokesperson of President Prabowo Subianto, Prasetyo Hadi said in a statement after calling PLN's CEO.
"God willing, power connection in Bali will be fully restored tonight (Friday night)," he said.
PLN prioritised restoring electricity to key infrastructure such as government offices, hospitals, the airport, as well as hotels, said Prasetyo.
The outage was caused by disruption in the subsea cables which connect the electricity system in Bali with Java island, triggering blackouts in a number of areas in Bali, he added.
Bali is Indonesia's main tourist hotspot, with 6.3 million foreign visitors last year, according to the island's statistics bureau. - Reuters
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