The power outage in parts of north Kashmir's Sopore area was caused by a rat, who damaged equipment at a sub-section early Thursday morning, the department said.
Chief Engineer of the Power Development Department (PDD), Hasmat Qazi, said rodents are a real threat to the system. “This, at times, leads to a short circuit and a blast at the station,” he said.
Qazi says rats are a big menace to high voltage system. “They creep into our panels and don’t have to gnaw at anything but just go on to a live part of the panel to create an explosion. It happens every now and then, and a 'rat fault' is a very commonly used nomenclature by us,” he says.
“The precautions taken are usually to keep the area around the panel clean, seal up the gaps in the panels and even a keeping trap or two around,” he says. However, he adds, a rodent finds a way in.
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He says out of 250 receiving stations, a "rat fault" occurs at least at 15 to 20.
Engineers here say rodents are known for causing power outage; they cause a short-circuit. They say rats eat or rather chew on cables. They do it in houses too, particularly in places where wiring and cables are laid with conduits.
“Rats keep chewing on things-not necessarily for eating though. I do not know if placing repellents will help since there would be hundreds of meters of cabling to consider,” says Iftikhar Drabu, former vice president and head business development HTC.
"We have so many control cables in panels from where we are controlling our circuit breakers, and whenever a rat cuts that cable, automatically the feeder gets tripped, " said an engineer.
