What’s Up with All the Power Outages?

Since Wednesday, April 14, San Pedro has been having frequent power outages that have been frustrating customers. The longest of those outages occurred during the early hours of Wednesday morning at about 1:00a.m. and lasted until 5:00a.m. The Belize Electricity Ltd. says that power was lost on the island following a trip on the transmission system. BEL work crews were dispatched to investigate the cause of the unplanned power outage, which still remains unknown.

Still on Wednesday, April 14, at 9:40 a.m. another unplanned power outage affected the entire island when a bird, which came in contact with a section of the distribution line, caused a trip on the system. Power was restored to all sections of the island by 10:10 a.m. Shorter outages followed during the day. A press release says that BEL apologizes for any inconvenience caused by these outages.

Today, Thursday, April 15, another power outage occurred at 9:55a.m., but this time it was a countrywide outage that BEL says was caused due to a burnt crossarm on a transmission line between Mexico and Orange Walk District. San Pedro power was restored at about 11:30a.m. and BEL says that all areas in the country are to be restored by 12:30p.m.

The Company reminds the public that it is offering a reward of $1,000 for any information leading to the arrest of persons involved in acts of sabotage on the Company’s power system. Such acts resulted in extended power outages last month. These criminal activities may result in damage to customers’ electrical equipment and perpetrators also put their safety at risk as they could be seriously injured or electrocuted.