Apartment blackouts spread as scorching heat drives power use to brink
Affected regions included Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon, and some residents spent the night in their cars or at nearby public facilities as they waited for power to be restored.
Locals take an evening stroll along Cheonggyecheon in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Aug. 3 to escape the heat.
NEWS1
A wave of power outages hit apartment complexes across the greater Seoul area on Tuesday night after residents’ electricity use overwhelmed local grids.
People whose cooling systems were affected scrambled to cope with the disruption, with some spending the night in their cars or at nearby public facilities as they waited for power to be restored.
In Gyeyang District, Incheon, an apartment complex lost power at around 7:49 p.m. on Tuesday, disabling air conditioners and fans for 374 households for more than four hours.
In response, the district office sent an emergency text message to residents, directing them to public facilities, including the district’s library and a nearby community youth center, to stay safe and cool.
The Korea Electric Power Corporation and local authorities said that the outage appeared to stem from a malfunction in the building’s internal wiring and transformer equipment, brought on by the surge in electricity use during the heat wave.
Power outages struck Seoul and Gyeonggi around the same time. The main circuit breaker of an apartment complex in Deogyang District, Goyang, melted due to a heat-caused electrical overload, cutting power to 460 households. It was temporarily restored two hours later.
An apartment building in Deungchon-dong in Gangseo District, western Seoul, also lost power due to an insufficient electricity supply. Even after power was restored, the district office asked residents to limit their use of air conditioners and elevators to prevent another overload.
Additional outages believed to be caused by electrical overloads struck other parts of the greater Seoul area, including Suwon, Gyeonggi.
Seoul and surrounding areas, including Goyang, Paju and Yongin, were under a heat wave emergency warning on Tuesday — the highest heat alert level, issued when the daily maximum perceived temperature is expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher.
BY KO SEUNG-PYO [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
