State of emergency, blackout in Russia’s Crimea after transmission towers in Ukraine blown up — RT News
▻https://www.rt.com/news/323012-crimea-blackout-lines-blown-up
Russia’s Crimea has switched to autonomous reserve power after transmission towers in the adjacent Ukrainian Kherson region were blown up, causing a blackout. Meanwhile, the Right Sector and Crimean Tatar “activists” have been attempting to block repairs.
Crimean authorities rushed to connect hospitals and other vital infrastructure to reserve power stations and generators late on Saturday after the four main transmission lines from Ukraine were cut off in an apparent act of sabotage. The regional energy ministry has created an emergency response center to deal with the power cut.
“Crimea has been completely cut off,” the Krymenergo energy company’s director Viktor Plakida told TASS, adding that he could not immediately provide any more details.
The Crimean Emergencies Ministry has declared a state of emergency due to the complete power outage and has put rescue teams on high alert.
Nearly 1.9 million people have been left partly or fully without electricity. While important public facilities and infrastructure have been wired up to reserve sources of energy, homes all across the region have been left in the dark.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian police and journalists simultaneously posted social media reports of explosions in Chaplinka in the Kherson region, where power transmission towers supporting the lines delivering energy to Crimea are located. Photos of severed towers with a Crimean-Tatar flag hanging on one of them have been posted online.
