Incheon's Yeongjong-gu District (Head Sohn Hwa-jeong) has strongly demanded that the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) clearly identify the cause of the large-scale power outage that struck the Yeongjong Sky City area on the 13th and come up with effective measures to prevent a recurrence. The move comes after residents and merchants suffered significant inconvenience from the outage, which occurred amid a heat wave.
 [The Korean Today] Yeongjong-gu District Head Sohn Hwa-jeong touring the site of the power outage damage © Reporter Kim Mi-hee |
The incident began around 5:16 p.m. on the 13th when a fault occurred in transmission lines at Jungsan Substation. As a result, power supplied to about 25,000 households, including apartments, houses and shops throughout the Yeongjong Sky City area, was cut off all at once.
The power outage led to damage of varying degrees across the area. Traffic signals went dark, causing vehicle congestion on major roads, and elevators stopped running, trapping residents inside. Shops also lost power, causing major disruption to merchants' business, and with air conditioning units shutting down in the height of summer heat, residents and merchants faced a double burden.
Immediately after the incident occurred, Yeongjong-gu District activated its disaster and safety situation room and entered emergency response mode, following District Head Sohn Hwa-jeong's instruction to "do everything possible to prevent damage from the power outage." The district's disaster and safety countermeasures headquarters held two rounds of emergency meetings with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's Disaster and Safety Headquarters and related organizations, and following the meetings, staff went out to the field in person to check for additional damage.
In preparation for evacuees resulting from the outage, temporary shelters were set up at the Yeongjong-dong and Yeongjong 1-dong administrative welfare centers. In addition, the Incheon Metropolitan City government, fire authorities, police, and dong administrative welfare centers and other related agencies and departments built a close cooperative system to manage the on-site situation in real time and support the rescue of residents.
At the district's request for cooperation, fire authorities dispatched personnel to sites where elevator entrapments occurred and carried out rescue operations. Police deployed personnel to major intersections where traffic congestion had occurred due to the signal outage and carried out traffic control.
That night, District Head Sohn Hwa-jeong personally toured sites where power had not yet been restored, listening to the concerns of residents and merchants, and discussed response measures with the district council and relevant officials. Sohn stressed, "A stable power supply is a matter closely tied to residents' safety," adding, "KEPCO must clearly determine the cause of this incident and come up with fundamental and powerful measures to prevent it from happening again."
Sohn went on to say, "Emergency restoration has been completed, but to prevent a recurrence, we must keep responding to the situation until full restoration is achieved," and added, "Yeongjong-gu District will actively cooperate with and support KEPCO's full restoration work."
The district cannot rule out the possibility of additional power outages if electricity use surges during the summer, and it plans to continue monitoring the situation to prevent further damage. As the heat wave continues, repeated instability in the power supply is a matter directly tied to residents' safety, and local attention is focused on whether KEPCO will identify the fundamental cause and establish measures to prevent a recurrence.
[ Reporter Kim Mi-hee: incheonsouth@thekoreantoday.com ]
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