Aceh hit by power blackouts

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.