MORE POWER CUT MISERY

Staff reporter STORMS lashing the Balearics caused power failures occurring between 3 and 5 o'clock yesterday morning on 7 lines of Majorca and Minorca's electricity distribution grid. As a result, nearly 9'000 people were without electricity yesterday, in some cases for up to six hours. At midday, 230 of those were still without a power supply. A spokesman for the power company, Gesa, reported that their technicians had managed to resolve the electricity supply problems by 9am, except in the case of 230 of their clients in Cala Galdana on Minorca; and in Sa Cabaneta, Pórtol, Santa María and Capdellá on Majorca, although they expected full service to be resumed later that morning. The spokesman confirmed that the lines which triggered power supply failures in Majorca, due to heavy rainfall and lightning, are those at Son Pardo which governs power distribution to the areas of Son Oliva and Palmanyola; at Palmer, which controls sa Rápita, Ses Covetes and s'Estanyol, as well as at Fontanelles and Cala d'Or. These lines have now been repaired. Gesa has given maximum reinforcement to their teams of technicians to enable them to “act as quickly as possible” and, according to their spokesman, these teams will remain on alert until the Balearic Meteorological Centre signals the end of risk of storms in the Islands. The spokesman went on to say that there has been notification of specific failures on lines of low and medium voltage, which are being attended to by Gesa technicians. The director of the Regional Centre of Meteorology in the Balearics, Agustín Jansá, explained that for yesterday there was still risk of strong, or very strong storms in the Archipelago. Today, however, the risk of storms is greatly reduced and it probably won't rain. The weather forecast for the weekend is for rain on Friday and Saturday, with improved conditions being augured for Sunday. In the last 24 hours, the rains were very intense in the Pitiusas, where 82 litres of rainfall per square metre were registered in Santa Eulalia, 79 litres in Sant Joan, 72 litres in Sant Antoni and 36 litres per square metre at Ibiza airport. In Majorca, the areas recording the heaviest amount of rainfall were Son Ferriol and Llucmajor, where 78.5 and 77 litres, respectively, fell per square metre. Campos and Establiments registered 65 and 47 litres per square metre. From 8pm on Tuesday this week until 8am yesterday, 10'600 lightning flashes were registered in the area of the Balearics, most of them around Ibiza and the southern part of Majorca. Most were witnessed as appearing out over the sea.