Pigeon Causes Blackout in Prachuap Kiri Khan
By Khaosod English


A pigeon flew into a cluster of electric wires and caused a blackout throughout an entire district in Prachuap Kiri Khan province, 26 Jan 2015.

PRACHUAP KIRI KHAN - A pigeon flew into a cluster of electric wires and caused a blackout throughout an entire district in Prachuap Kiri Khan province yesterday.

The blackout started at around 3 pm on 26 January after a loud explosion was heard near power lines in front of Wat Kuiburi Temple. The incident affected nearly all of the households in Kuiburi district, officials say.

Firefighters were dispatched to put out the flame on the electricity pole that followed the explosion.

A dead pigeon, which was apparently electrocuted to death, was found right below the electricity pole where the blast occurred.

An official from the Provincial Electricity Authority office in Kuiburi said that the bird accidentally touched two opposing electric wires with its wings and caused a disruption in the electricity current.

Full story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1422331733


-- Khaosod English 2015-01-27

R.I.P. poor little bird...

So the poor bird is already precooked and will likely end up as dinner somewhere.

At least it went out with a big bang.

Impossible that the bird was an unfortunate victim of the totally professional wiring commonly found on the utility poles all around Thailand.

Was it the wiring? .... Absolutely no way .... it was the birds fault.

Edited January 27, 201511 yr by expat_4_life

I expect the bird was trying to find a way to reduce the electricity bill.

bare live high voltage wires that close together? Now that's frightening!

Not the bird! Just bad wiring. The bird if it did touch across 2 Phases HV would have been blown to little peices, not falling to the ground below. Just another bad wiring job by the proffessionals.

Edited January 28, 201511 yr by duckmandon

before anybody comment on "bad job" done on electric power traction ...better get education in this subject.

There is no insulation on high voltage wire running on poles .

There is much higher voltage then you think...It comes in kvolts not just 220 or 240 volts.

There is also 1 or 3 phases(no 2 phases ) power and wires are bare to allow cooling.

Depends from country voltage comes in thousands of volts delivered to transformers.

Birds, rats and bats are major cause of this type of power failure in whole world.

If you so shocked of seeing so many wires (mainly low voltage and data together)

then you will be even more shocked if you see even bigger bunches in Taiwan, Hong kong or India.

Believe me it looks tragic even for me (electrician) but overall it is not so bad at all but power wires are much cheaper to run on poles and they can not be insulated otherwise they will overheat.

Just look closely in Usa Australia (just in state of Victoria we have more then 1.5 milions poles)...there is milions of poles and so many are having blowouts in connectors leading to houses even without birds touching it.

In local low voltage lines in suburban

areas, termed "reticulation"lines carry

230/415 volts but High voltage lines serving 11000V 22000V or 66000V.

Yes , that's what suburban bare wires carry.

Those from power stations are carry 220 000 (22kv) or 500.000V

So better do not be so sarcastic on Los if you just guessing how it works.

Accidents happen everywhere even in the highly developed countries and it is just normal.

I only feel sorry for poor bird which wanted to have a rest on 22000 volts wires.

There is no need for sarcasm.