A tangled mess of overhead wires in Pattaya on Wednesday suddenly burst into flames and toppled a power pole, causing an explosion and widespread power outage.

 

An unidentified Thai pedestrian recorded a video clip of a fire that was burning a bunch of overhead wires on Soi 1 on Ratchawarun Road in Pattaya, Chonburi.

 

The incident happened last night, November 16th. The fire kept growing larger and unexpectedly caused a power pole, from which the wires were dangling, to collapse across the road, resulting in an explosion.

 

Full Story: https://thepattayanews.com/2022/11/17/wires-burst-into-flames-and-topple-power-pole-in-pattaya-causing-explosion-and-widespread-power-outage/

 

-- © Copyright The Pattaya News 2022-11-17

 

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very shocking experience for the pedestrian,   at first he would have considered it an electrifying experience but that would be short as he was currently on his way ohm ....  

"A tangled mess of overhead wires"....... In Thailand? No way!!

4 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

A tangled mess of overhead wires

I wonder what will happen when all these wires are buried.

Will there be order in the tunnels?

Or will there, at least after some time, be also a tangled mess, this time not so visible?

And how long will it take to repair "incidents" in the cable tunnels?

I don't even want to think about flooding.

Thailand maintenance, what could possibly go wrong? ...

9 hours ago, steven100 said:

very shocking experience for the pedestrian,   

Pretty sure it would have been more shocking in the flooding earlier in the week

That's the jaw dropping fireworks display mentioned in the same edition.

I've seen this happen twice before. Lots of excitement. I'm thinking that the rain somehow caused this one, hot water heated instead of air cooling the tangle of wires.

7 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I wonder what will happen when all these wires are buried.

Will there be order in the tunnels?

Aren't a lot of the wires unused but the technicians just leave them there?  Also a lot of spools of spare wire.

 

I feel like maybe if they're forced to actually remove unused wires and straighten up the ones in use, it could turn out OK. 

12 hours ago, steven100 said:

very shocking experience for the pedestrian,   at first he would have considered it an electrifying experience but that would be short as he was currently on his way ohm ....  

Eh?   Watt?

42 minutes ago, BangkokReady said:

Aren't a lot of the wires unused but the technicians just leave them there?  Also a lot of spools of spare wire.

 

I feel like maybe if they're forced to actually remove unused wires and straighten up the ones in use, it could turn out OK. 

In theory that is a good idea.

But how do they know that a wire is unused? Because at that time there is no signal on that wire?

Or because of some outdated plan?

 

A long time ago I worked on a project which involved pipes in refiniaries.

Often they needed a new pipe from A to B, and they saw there were already some pipes which seemed to be unused. But nobody really new and nobody wanted to bet his job on some assumption. So what did they do? They didn't touch the old pipes and added a new one - or two or three...

8 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I wonder what will happen when all these wires are buried.

Will there be order in the tunnels?

Or will there, at least after some time, be also a tangled mess, this time not so visible?

And how long will it take to repair "incidents" in the cable tunnels?

I don't even want to think about flooding.

Thailand maintenance, what could possibly go wrong? ...

Tunnels? Perhaps optimistic.

Dig out a rough trench just deep enough, throw the wires in and cover with 4cm of loose dirt. Wires not protected or sorted or waterproofed, no records kept, more likely.  

My 3BB internet was off last night so my TV/phone didn't work. Luckily I'd downloaded some movies to tide me over.

I assume to person who videoed this is now in hiding fearing for his/her life.

1 hour ago, BangkokReady said:

Aren't a lot of the wires unused but the technicians just leave them there?  Also a lot of spools of spare wire.

 

I feel like maybe if they're forced to actually remove unused wires and straighten up the ones in use, it could turn out OK. 

Both true and in Pattaya City some cleanup had been done. I have seen that and taken some pictures. So if they want they can find the unused cables. It's just lazyness and not bringing profit.

 

But these are communication cables. The loops are fiber optic cable.

Should not result in such fire.

There must have been some real power/transformer involved.

This little fire can not match the spectacle taken place some weeks ago at 2nd rd, Soi 15 ????

8 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

wonder what will happen when all these wires are buried.

Will there be order in the tunnels?

Let's hope so.

There has actually quite a number of power cable burying taken place. Was surprised to see many high voltage lines going underground (no overhead transformers).

On Naklua Rd, at BigC Extra and others.

In Walking Street you see housings with meters for voltage/current. 

Did I still see overhead transformers? I don't think so. These beasts were always dangerous. Once a music club burnt down by a transformer explosion.

This fire was a bit more impressive than the photo provided. The transformer blew up twice about 30 minutes apart (around 9-10pm), both sounded like a bomb with massive white flash. The road was closed until about 4am and the PEA guys had a load of trucks and equipment, flood lights etc turning night into day.

 

The road was not passable so a road was formed through the vacant plot as it's the only access in and out of Cosy beach area.

 

 

10 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I wonder what will happen when all these wires are buried.

Will there be order in the tunnels?

Or will there, at least after some time, be also a tangled mess, this time not so visible?

And how long will it take to repair "incidents" in the cable tunnels?

I don't even want to think about flooding.

Thailand maintenance, what could possibly go wrong? ...

Bury the existing cables underground.. so maintenance will be a headache or installing new cables?

2 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Did I still see overhead transformers? I don't think so. These beasts were always dangerous. Once a music club burnt down by a transformer explosion.

The transformers have to be somewhere. And to be efficient not too far away from the consumers.

I hope they are not somewhere centrally underground. Because if then one of them explodes then maybe 20 others next to that one will also explode...

 

I've seen a few transformers explode , it does bring a nice lightshow before everything goes dark .

3 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Bury the existing cables underground.. so maintenance will be a headache or installing new cables?

Hope they learn from other countries where this is standard.

Try to find an open high voltage line or overhead transformer in a Swiss or German city area/walking street.