Outage in North-West as truck crashes into TCN facility, transmission tower collapses

“Although no life was lost, the incident has been reported to Gezawa Divisional Police Station and the driver has also been detained,” said TCN.

News Agency of Nigeria • August 13, 2024

Crashed TCN tower [Credit; techeconomy]

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has engaged a contractor to reconstruct its tower located in Gunduwawa in Kano, which was knocked down by a truck.

TCN spokeswoman Ndidi Mbah, in a statement on Monday, said that electricity supply infrastructure in the North-West was disrupted when a truck crashed into one of the towers in the region, causing an outage.

“A contractor has already been contracted to reconstruct the tower. He is expected to mobilize to the site of the incident on Tuesday. At about 9:28 a.m. on Sunday, the Kano-Hadejia 132 Kilo Volt (kV) Transmission Line tripped, losing about 16.6 (MW).

“Trial re-closure of the line to enable continued bulk power supply failed, prompting the immediate dispatch of a patrol team to survey the line. Our team found out that a trailer truck carrying a container had hit tower T16 situated in Gunduwawa and destroyed two legs of the tower, causing it to buckle and fall,” said TCN.

According to the statement, the crash caused the tripping of the line, cutting off supply as the tower fell on the container and hit a nearby residential building, damaging a part of it.

“Although no life was lost, the incident has been reported to Gezawa Divisional Police Station and the driver has also been detained. Unfortunately, this has put Hadejia, Gumel, Gagarawa, Nguru, Mallammadori, Birniwa, Kafin-Hausa, Auyo, Guri, Kaugama, Taura, Garki, Maigatari, Babura, Kirikasamma, Machina local government areas in Jigawa and Yobe states in darkness.

“Presently, there is no alternative source of bulk power supply to two of TCN’s substations, the Gagarawa and Hadejia substations.
”This means that the affected areas will not have supply until the tower is repaired,” TCN explained.

The statement said TCN would do everything possible to dismantle the damaged tower quickly, erect a new one, and restrain the lines to enable the bulk power supply to the two substations to resume.

It said restoring the bulk supply would enable the Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to offtake power for their customers within the affected areas.

(NAN)

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