Odesa Power Station Guts Fire, Plunging Over 500,000 Into Darkness

Fire has gutted Odesa power station, plunging over 500,000 into darkness.
Ukrainian officials warned that repairs could take weeks.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of state grid operator Ukrenergo, said critical equipment that had already been damaged several times by Russian missile strikes.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that nearly 500,000 people were left without power after an overloaded electrical substation in Odesa, Ukraine’s southern port city on the Black Sea, caught fire.

The temperature in Odesa was 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) Saturday and was forecast to drop below freezing for much of next week.

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Ukrainian officials warned that repairs could take weeks. Regional Governor Maksym Marchenko said he did not have a timeline for when power would be restored to the city.

Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of state grid operator Ukrenergo, said critical equipment that had already been damaged several times by Russian missile strikes burst into flames when it could no longer “withstand the load,” delivering a fresh blow to the country’s ailing energy grid that has been pounded by Russian strikes for months.

“[The equipment] has been struck so many times that its state leaves much to be desired,” Kudrytskyi told a briefing in Odesa.

The Ukrainian government said it would appeal to Turkey to send vessels that carry power plants to Odesa and ordered the energy ministry’s nationwide stocks of high-power generators to be delivered to the city within a day.

“We will do everything we can for the improvement of the power supply situation to take days rather than weeks,” he said.