Power Outages Hit Across Capital Region Amid Tropical Nights; Heat-Related Illnesses Reach Year's High

[Anchor]

As tropical nights continue day after day, power supplies were cut off in various parts of the capital region overnight, causing ongoing inconvenience for citizens. The daily count of heat-related illness patients in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province recorded its highest figure this year.

Reporting by Cho Min-ki.

[Reporter]

An apartment complex is engulfed in pitch-black darkness.

Inside a home heated up by the tropical night, a single candle flickers alone on the dining table.

A report of a power outage at an apartment complex in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, was received around 11:50 PM last night. A sudden transformer failure cut off electricity to about 1,000 households across 12 buildings.

Emergency restoration restored power to only some households after about two hours, and complete restoration was achieved only at 8:30 AM today.

Residents exhausted by the intense heat spent the night wide awake.

[Resident: It is unbearably hot. Sweat is just pouring down. They said it would take a long time to restore, and I found an unmanned coffee shop that stays open 24 hours. So I went and sat there...]

[Resident: Because I got the call while sleeping and asked, 'Why is it dark?' they said the power had just gone out. You can't sleep even for a moment if you turn off the air conditioner. It's unbearably hot.]

Last night, a power outage also occurred at an apartment complex in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, due to an electrical facility malfunction, which was restored around 12:00 AM early this morning.

No one was injured, but about 500 households had to suffer through the sweltering heat.

[(Isn't there someone in the elevator?) I was trapped inside and then it opened. I walked down because I was worried it might close again.]

Around 2:20 AM early this morning, a power outage occurred along with an explosion sound at an apartment in Dobong-gu, Seoul.

Korea Electric Power Corporation stated that the outage appeared to be caused by a problem with the apartment's own transformer and that it stepped in with support for prompt restoration.

Amid the raging heatwave, the daily count of heat-related illness patients reported the day before was tallied at 39 in Seoul and 67 in Gyeonggi Province.

Both figures are the highest recorded so far this year.

(Video by Kim Seung-tae | Video Editing by Yoon Tae-ho)

※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.