While they continue with the
investigative reports
to find out what happened at the Edesur substation in Caballito that caught fire this Saturday early in the afternoon, the first signs are already there: a malfunction in an
oil filtration machine
would have started the incident that It forced hundreds of people to evacuate from neighboring buildings and initially left more than 60,000 users without electricity.
In a statement issued this Sunday by the concessionaire company, Edesur reported that there are still more than 13 thousand users affected by the power outage, and that "indications were found that would allow us to determine the causes of the fire."
"We can assert, subject to confirmation from specialists, that the incident occurred
when a crew was carrying out maintenance work
at the site," the statement added and indicated that "the fire experts will analyze today (this Sunday) the causes of the incident".
From the company, it was explained that "it was a scheduled
oil filtration activity in one of the
main transformers, a job for which a specific treatment machine is used for that task."
The fire "would have originated in said filtration machine,
later affecting the rest of the facilities
," they indicated.
According to Edesur, "there are still 13,200 customers without supply, which represents that 80% have recovered service."
Four fire crews fought the flames for more than six hours.
Photo: Emmanuel Fernández
And they completed: "In the next few hours,
large
generating equipment will be installed to reduce the number of affected customers and while the substation reconstruction tasks begin."
A fire that altered Caballito
The Edesur substation caught fire this Saturday early afternoon in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Caballito.
At 2:51 p.m. an
emergency call came in to 911
due to the fire at electrical substation 122 of the Edesur company, located at José María Moreno 300, between Juan Bautista Alberdi and Formosa.
Due to the incident, hundreds of residents of neighboring buildings had to be evacuated, while many homes were left without water, given that the electricity outage also affected the AySA elevator plant, located a few blocks away.
The fire in Edesur affected the adjacent building.
Photo: Emmanuel Fernández
The flames started on the ground floor and first floor of the substation, a building about 25 meters wide by 40 meters deep, which has two 80 MVA AT/MT transformers and supplies service to more than 100 customers. .
As reported by Edesur in a statement, the substation had been renovated a little more than eight years ago, during 2015.
At least four City Firefighters worked at the scene and after more than six hours of work they managed to control the flames.
In addition, 12 SAME units (eight ambulances and four special mobiles) were there.
Although no victims were reported, several people had to be assisted by SAME personnel due to suffocation due to smoke, in the midst of an operation deployed by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires to provide assistance to the victims.
Meanwhile, the ENRE indicated this Saturday that it was dedicated to controlling, with technical personnel, the repair of the tasks that the company Edesur will carry out at the site and announced that "it will carry out an investigation to determine the causes that produced the fire."
For its part, the company Agua y Saneamientos Argentina (AySA) asked the residents of Caballito to "make rational use of the water service" due to the power outage in its lifting plant, although it indicated that it "put into operation a contingency plan until to see the energy restored" by reinforcing the distribution of drinking water with the pumping of the Flores, Centro and Villa Devoto lifting stations.
With information from Télam
D.S.