Reason Why Mazyr Stays Without Light For Almost Two Days

In many ways it is the consequences of the war with Ukraine.

For almost two days, 105,000 Mazyr and its district were not able to restore power supply after the disaster that hit the region on July 14. A large part of the south-west of Homel region - this is not only Mazyr region, but also Naroulia, Yelsk and Lelchytsy districts - were blacked out.

In particular, there was no water in Mazyr for more than a day because of the absence of electricity - local residents had to stand in huge queues to water tankers. Non-working refrigerators and spoilt food, inability to charge mobile phones - these are just some of the problems experienced by Mazyr residents.

Flagshtok has found out why it took so long to return electricity supply to the district. Mazyr district was de-energised because of the collapsed support of the 330-kilovolt power line - because of this the line was disconnected. And it turned out to be impossible to supply electricity from another region, explained a local power engineer:

"In a good way, large substations are looped between each other, and Mazyr was looped with Homel through the territory of Ukraine. At the beginning of the war, the Ukrainians switched off the Homel - Chernihiv line [after the invasion of Russian troops from the territory of Homel region - Ed.]. Therefore, there is actually no looping in our region," the specialist said.

In 2022, energetics started to correct the situation in a hurry and make another loop: building a power line from Mazyr and Petrykau to Salihorsk. It has not yet been put into operation:

"The probable reason is problems with the environmental expertise. It turns out that there is no looping, the line collapsed - and that's it, a catastrophe".

Therefore, the district residents, enterprises and medical institutions had to wait for the collapsed transmission line support to be restored, but power engineers cannot do it themselves - a specialised organisation is needed. It was urgently summoned, but due to bureaucracy they were not allowed to work for half a day:

"No one had the courage to turn a temporary blind eye to the numerous instructions in order to give permission to work more quickly and to start eliminating the consequences of the accident as soon as possible."

According to the Ministry of Energy, electricity started to flow to Mazyr CHPP only at 10 a.m. on July 16.

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