Aceh hit by power blackouts

Bernie K. Moestafa and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Lhokseumawe, Aceh

Frequent power blackouts have added to the suffering of the Acehnese as conflict and martial law, which will enter its fourth week, continued unabated.

Hospitals and households are affected the most by the power outages, which have become frequent in the strife-torn province over the past two years. An official with the local state electricity company PT PLN said power blackouts had taken place 12 times since 2001.

This time the blackouts, which started on Thursday after an "unidentified group of people" damaged electricity towers in North Aceh, are affecting most of North Aceh, including the city of Lhokseumawe, East Aceh, Pidie and Bireuen regencies.

Due to the power outage, as of 8 p.m. on Friday, main thoroughfares in Lhokseumawe, the main city of North Aceh, were deserted. In normal times, activities on the streets do not end until 11 p.m.

Local residents opted to stay home.

For the Acehnese, the power blackouts have diminished their quality of life. Apart from depriving people of lights and television, the absence of electricity also causes gas stations to cease services and disrupts automatic teller machines.

Cut Meutia Hospital in Lhokseumawe was also adversely affected by the power blackouts.

Suryani Said, the director of the hospital, told reporters that the hospital was forced to use generators in order to enable essential equipment to continue running.

Air conditioners were off as well, since the generators' capacity is limited to lights and crucial equipment.

The generators are only turned on at night. However, it affected important machines such as radiology, surgery and laboratory equipment.

"We operate the equipment only at nights," said Suryani.

The hospital has been forced to call off surgeries for patients. On Friday, the hospital only conducted surgery on two patients, one who had caesarean birth operation and the other had surgery to remove a tumor.

There will be no surgery on Saturday, Suryani said.

Meanwhile, local residents flocked to stores to buy generators. In Lhokseumawe, generators had sold out by 11 p.m. Due to the scarcity, only within hours, the price of generators jumped from Rp 800,000 to Rp 1.2 million.

"I had 10 generators, but those were sold out at by 11 p.m," said Apin Suwanto, a local generator seller.

Most household-size generators require about a liter of fuel per hour.

An Indonesian military (TNI) officer based in Lhokseumawe accused members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) perpetrating the power blackout.

The security authorities promised to investigate the incidents and rebuild the broken towers, in order to restore power.

Sulaiman Daud, the head of state electricity company PT PLN's branch of Lhokseumawe, said that the power outage in the regions could cost the company some Rp 240 million rupiah in potential revenues per day.

He said that it might take between one week to one month before PLN could restore the power.

Sulaiman said transmission lines of PLN were vulnerable to attack and guarding all of them was difficult because of a lack of security personnel.

"There is a tower every 300 meters," he said.