1998 Auckland power crisis

The Auckland power crisis of 1998 was a five -week power outage which happened in the Central Business District of Auckland, New Zealand 1998.

At the beginning of 1998, the city of Auckland was supplied by Mercury Energy via only four high voltage cables with electrical energy. Two of them were 40 year old oil-filled cable. One of these lines fell on January 20, probably due to the unusually hot and dry weather of ( the height of summer in the southern hemisphere ), another on 9 February. The two remaining lines were loaded reinforced by the failures and finally fell on 19 and 20 February and from. This had virtually the entire city loses power.

The Queen Street was almost extinct in the early days, because few businesses could be operated. Some carried their goods for sale on the street, but heavy rain in the first week under tied it way out. In order to provide important businesses and shops with electricity generators were brought in from around the country. The noise of the generators in the Queen Street deter the customer from but. It is estimated that the power failure, the dealer downtown cost at least 60,000 NZD per week.

The event became an international media spectacle. The facts were presented or embellished, so that gave the impression that the entire city or even the entire island without electricity is often exaggerated abroad.

It took five weeks before an above-ground emergency cable downtown again supplied with electricity. During the power outage, most of the 74,000 employees of the affected part of the city from home working from or in outsourced offices in the suburbs. Some companies move their employees to other cities in New Zealand or even Australia. Most of the 6,000 residents had to find other accommodations.