The President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen was forced to apologise for a nationwide power blackout caused by 'human error' at a major power station as four units broke down, which affected millions of households on Tuesday. The nationwide outage also led to the resignation of Taiwan's Economic Affairs Minister Lee Chih-kung.
“I, on behalf of the administration, deeply apologise for the inconvenience and worry caused. It should have not happened.” Tsai said at a meeting of her ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s Central Standing Committee in Taipei.
Massive blackouts that lasted several hours on Tuesday were caused by a malfunction at the Tatan Power Plant, in Taoyuan county, the largest natural gas facility in Taiwan.
The malfunction, caused by human error, affected the supply of 4.65 million kilowatts of electricity and approximately 6.68 million households in 17 cities and counties on the main island of Taiwan. Tsai called for a comprehensive review of the country’s “fragile power supply systems.’’
Chen Chin-te, Chairman of the state-run Taiwan Power Company and CPC Corporation Taiwan, a state-owned petroleum, natural gas, and gasoline company, said in a press conference on Wednesday that the human error was caused by a contractor’s failure to follow standard operating procedures.
Premier Lin Chuan, has ordered a probe to identify management problems in the state run power company.
The president equally promised to overhaul the power section, "we must reform the system. I will make this an important point for thorough inspection reforms in the future," she wrote on her Facebook account.
