Government considering compensating households affected by blackout

The government is considering compensating those households which were left without electricity for more than 12 hours as a result of this week’s nationwide outage, according to tvm.com.mt.

Damage to cables linking up to the distribution centre in Marsa on Tuesday evening caused a fire which, in turn, led to an explosion. The Marsa and Delimara power stations were automatically turned off as a precautionary ‘safety trip’ and the nationwide outage ensured.

Whilst power was restored to most localities by the late hours of Tuesday night and early hours of Wednesday morning, some localities were left without electricity as late as Wednesday afternoon. Four localities in particular – Luqa, Zebbug, Qormi and parts of Marsa – suffered the most as they received energy directly from the affected distribution centre.

As reported by tvm.com.mt, government and Enemalta are presently assessing compensatory measures for households affected in those localities – or rather, for those families which suffered a loss of electricity of more than 12 hours. It would be the first time that such compensation was granted.

The report states that in spite of the fact that there is no legal obligation on the part of government or Enemalta to provide compensation as “the circumstances were such that Enemalta had no control over them”, compensation for residential and domestic households was being considered.

Sources allegedly told the news house that if compensation is indeed granted, it will be a one-off occurrence and will not serve as a precedent for the future.