A massive power outage hit central Prague along with the city’s 5th, 10th and 4th districts. The city’s C line metro stopped running and its tram network collapsed along the right bank all the way down to Podoli in Prague 4. Emergency services are reporting dozens of calls for help to evacuate people trapped in elevators. Trams stopped in the middle of intersections in some cases. The cause seems to be a failure at the Chodov power central distribution center, which exploded back in 2013 causing widespread outages.
Prague’s fire departments says it responded to numerous fire alarms after smoke was seen coming from the roofs of buildings. However, they say in all cases, it was connected with diesel generators being turned on to restore power in those buildings. PRE estimates that as many as 800,000 people may have been without power.
PRE now claims that power was restored before 10 am. “Prague’s advantage is that it’s connect cyclically,” said PRE spokesman Karel Hanzelka. “At 9:38 we partially renewed electricity in the affected areas. We were able to provide electricity from other parts of Prague, specifically, from Řeporyje. At this moment there should be power everywhere. So the outage lasted just under an hour.” At 10 am, Prague mayor Zdeněk Hřib tweeted that repairs were expected to take roughly two hours but as of 10:30 there were already reports that the situation was returning to normal. That includes the metro, which is said to be fully operational. Oddly, the Old Town in Prague 1 appears to have been largely unaffected by the outage.
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