‘Glenda’ leaves over 5 million Meralco customers in the dark

The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) on Wednesday, July 16, said that its franchise areas were severely affected by typhoon “Glenda,” which toppled power lines and affected transmission facilities of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

The latest figures from Meralco showed that over five million customers are without power.

Outage issues

Meralco spokesperson Joe Zaldarriaga added the demand dropped 90 percent, with its southern service areas most affected. These areas include Laguna, Cavite, Quezon, and parts of Rizal such as Binangonan, Morong, Tanay, Pililia and Jala-jala.

“Mas lumawak pa ang extent ng outage sa Meralco franchise areas. In fact, in terms of the demand, 90 percent ang nabawas sa kabuoang demand sa Meralco franchise area. In terms of the areas, ang southern portion talaga namin ang napakalaki ng extent ng damage based on our initial analysis,” he said on ABS-CBN’s Umagang Kay Ganda.

Zaldarriaga said they will conduct repairs as soon as possible, and appealed to Meralco customers for understanding.

“Humihingi po kami ng pag-unawa sa aming mga consumers, napakatindi po kasi ng tumama sa amin, gayun din sa panig ng NGCP, transmission facilities, we also rely on that. I think that has also been affected,” he said.

No power from Pasig to Bicol

Meanwhile, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said all of southern Luzon, from Pasig to Bicol, is without power.

The NGCP is not yet clear about the extent of the damage or how long it will take to restore power.

NGCP connects Meralco and other distributors to power plants, which means even if distributors are able to repair their lines, power may still not flow from the plants.

NGCP spokeswoman Cynthia Alabanza said power in Bicol was the first to go, but the rest followed as tramission lines were damaged by the winds.

NGCP said lines have tripped or been cut, and they assume, but cannot yet confirm, that some towers fell.

The line connecting Luzon to the Visayas is also cut.

NGCP said there is also some outage in northern Luzon.