THE HAGUE, April 30 (Xinhua) -- A major power outage struck the eastern Dutch city of Enschede on Wednesday, leaving more than 20,000 households without electricity for about two hours, local authorities said.
According to Dutch grid operator Enexis, the blackout was caused by a short circuit during maintenance work at a distribution station. The outage began around 11 a.m. local time and affected homes and businesses across the city of approximately 160,000 residents. Many shops were forced to close as cash registers and ATMs became inoperable.
A technician was injured in the short circuit and was taken to hospital with unknown injuries, the local safety region reported.
Although the incident was quickly resolved, it sparked broader concerns about the country's preparedness for large-scale outages, especially in light of the widespread blackout earlier this week in Spain and Portugal.
"The chance of a similar event here is very small, but still - what if?" Hein van der Loo, chairman of the national Safety Council, said in an interview with the television program Nieuwsuur.
The Netherlands is divided into 25 safety regions that coordinate emergency services at the local, regional, and national levels. Van der Loo said these systems are generally well organized but expressed concern over the readiness of fire stations in the event of a major power failure.
He estimated that around half of the country's roughly 1,000 fire stations are insufficiently prepared and called for every station to be equipped with an emergency generator.
What happened in Spain and Portugal should be a wake-up call for the government, he said, adding that the Netherlands urgently needs a reliable network of emergency support points.
