Substation on fire: tens of thousands without electricity in Rastatt
Created: 09/18/2022Updated: 09/18/2022 2:28 p.m
A Stadtwerke vehicle is in the Oberreuth substation after a power failure.
© Dominik Müller/dpa
There is no light switch, no refrigerator and no telephone - and that in a fairly large city: On Sunday there is a large-scale power failure in Rastatt.
Many hours will pass before the situation is under control again.
Rastatt - The fire in a substation caused a power outage that lasted for hours in the entire city of Rastatt.
The fire broke out on Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. for reasons that have not yet been clarified, according to a police spokesman.
The power outage extended to all districts and lasted for many hours.
According to the fire department, three districts were still without electricity in the afternoon.
As far as is known, no one was injured.
However, the fire brigade reported two medical emergencies that had to be taken care of.
The disruption affected the entire supply network, according to Stadtwerke Rastatt.
The city was gradually switched back on by the municipal utilities in the afternoon, said the commander of the Rastatt fire brigade, René Hundert, the German Press Agency.
The reason for the failure was a fire in a substation.
Two other transformer stations and a residential building also caught fire.
The fires have since been extinguished, it said in the afternoon.
About 50,000 people were affected by the power outage.
Around 150 forces from various organizations were deployed.
The entire fixed network and parts of the cell phone network would no longer work in Rastatt, said fireman Hundert.
According to the warning app from the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, the emergency numbers for the police and fire brigade were disrupted.
According to the fire brigade, they formed 13 contact points in the city for concerned citizens and medical emergencies.
Two emergencies were taken care of, said Hundert.
The hospital in Rastatt was not affected because it had its own power supply, and the rescue service was diverted to Baden-Baden.
The central Baden integrated control center has been staffed, said a spokesman for the Rastatt district fire brigade.
Because of the power failure, a signal box in Rastatt also failed.
There were delays and cancellations in train services, as a spokesman for the railway said.
Rastatt is about 22 kilometers southwest of Karlsruhe and has around 50,000 inhabitants.
dpa
