Latakia - SANA
Two trucks loaded with electrical equipment, "transformers, disks and cables of low and medium voltages" arrived in the city of Jableh to compensate for the damage to the electrical network as a result of the earthquake.
Engineer Ghassan Al-Zamil, Minister of Electricity, told reporters during a tour that, as part of the ministry's plan to respond in the areas affected by the earthquake, two batches of electrical equipment were sent to Lattakia Governorate with the aim of restoring the damage to the electrical network and returning it to service.
The tour included examining the faults caused by the earthquake in the substation of the Al-Rastin power station and the port substation.
Al-Zamil indicated that the main transformer in Al-Rastain was damaged by earthquakes, which led to oil leakage, which will delay putting it into service, indicating that the specialized committees and workshops will carry out the necessary repairs and tests to ensure that it returns to work in an ideal manner, hoping that the internal damages will be light and this does not appear. Only through careful detection by technicians.
And Al-Zamil indicated that the imposed US sanctions caused a delay in the extension of the gas pipeline as a result of the delay in the supplies of gas pipelines for a period of 4 months. To the cessation of work and certainly the station will be put into service soon.
In turn, Eng. Ghassan Khader, head of the operational operations unit in the coastal region, pointed to the large size of the damage and malfunctions that occurred to the lines and transformers as a result of the earthquake, as the simple ones were repaired and remedied, but the damage in the city of Lattakia is not insignificant, especially the Rastan substation near the northern border due to the severity of the tremor. The floor that resulted in the power transformer being filled with oil, and a break in the fixing bolts of the transformer coolers, which led to a drop in the coolers and the opening of the oil flashes and thus the oil exited the transformer and moved to a special tank to collect the oil in such accidents, and it will be re-extracted, refined and utilized again Referring to the efforts exerted to fix the fault immediately and at maximum speed and to add new oil to compensate for the leaked oil.
With regard to the damage caused by the earthquake at the port substation, Bain Khader indicated that there were fractures in a number of breakers, the cost of which is very high, in addition to damage to the voltage transformers and a leak of oil in the transformer due to its collision with a foreign body during the tremor, where a large part of the damage has been dealt with, and work is underway to rehabilitate the damaged system. Noting that the estimated cost of this damage is about three billion Syrian pounds.
Jaber Al-Asi, General Manager of the Lattakia Electricity Company, confirmed that the damage to the electrical network system in the areas affected by the earthquake is very large, especially the towers, low and medium voltage networks, and transmission centers, as it caused the collapse of more than 25 towers in Lattakia, Jableh, Qardaha, Al-Basit, Ain Al-Sharqiya, etc. areas, vandalism in transmission centers, and the fall of about 75 transformers from the towers, most of which were restored, adding: the focus on the first day was on rescue operations, removing rubble, and not restoring the electric current until after ensuring the safety of everyone, and on the second day, the workshops began to operate and spread throughout the governorate. To fix all the faults, and it is expected that the work will be completed next Saturday, noting the support of all state institutions in terms of the levers that the electricians needed to lift the transformers and return them to service and operation.
Rasha Raslan
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