KUWAIT CITY, Sept 9: Accidents and emergency situations, which are general and not limited to a specific sector or country, have now become a subject for those who are “waiting for a misstep,” especially the members of the National Assembly who are waiting to restore their popularity, even if government agencies respond quickly and urgently to an emergency.

This was particularly seen the day before yesterday with the power outage experienced in eight areas, which in their viewpoint is a governmental “misstep” and an opportunity for “threat and intimidation” through “interpellation.”

The power outage witnessed in eight areas two days ago brought to mind what the country witnessed in the year 2007, when the Ministry of Electricity, Water, and Renewable Energy resorted to a programmed interruption due to the lack of energy production quantities and another outage that had occurred in large parts of the country in 2012 as a result of the network malfunctions.

The daily conducted statistics to monitor power outages in the summer of 2023, based on the posts of the Ministry of Electricity and Water on the “X” platform. According to the statistics, from the beginning of May until September, that is within five months, the total number of power outages was 23, mostly in the exit of feeders from the substation stations that had burned down and went out of service.

The total number of such incidents resulting from the exit of feeders was 19, or 98 percent of the total accidents, as there are 56 feeders in a number of separate stations in the areas, and four due to combustion and the exit of service, including three combustion accidents in Shuaiba A, South Jahra C, Sabah Al-Salem station M, and one accident in Hawally main station exit A.

Despite the citizens’ complaints about the power outages in light of the high temperatures, the Ministry of Electricity and Water dealt with the situation in a transparent manner. Immediately after the power outage occurred two days ago, the ministry issued a detailed statement announcing the exit of the main substation Hawally A, coinciding with the outbreak of a limited fire in the main substation in Abdullah Al-Salem M due to a malfunction in one of the cells, which led to a power outage in Daiya, Nuzha, Rawdah, Hawally, Mansouriya, Abdullah Al-Salem suburb and Qadisiya areas. By Mohammad Ghanem Al-Seyassah Staff