On Monday night in October 2013, almost all of Vladivostok and even the residents of the suburbs felt a sharp surge in the power grid. Televisions were buzzing, computers were overloaded, bulbs were booming, hot water was gone and the Internet was turned off. And most importantly, the sky was clearly shining over the city. On some power lines, bright flashes were seen.
"What was it? What exploded? " - posts on social networks were full of the most incredible assumptions: from a meteorite fall to a UFO.
As soon as the connection was restored, bloggers began to actively discuss the reasons for this unusual phenomenon. Versions have been put forward from "meteorite or UFO" to "serious accident at the substation." User Voronin Valentin writes: “As the knowledgeable people say, power lines 110 and 220 pass through the Baleike. I just saw a fireball there, after a while - the sound of a discharge…”.
“I saw a flash, it lasted for several seconds. Very bright. " “The sky has turned white. It doesn't look like lightning, because the whole sky was brighter and there was no thunder."
“There was a spherical flash with an epicenter on the ground, lasting about five seconds. In the area there is a third worker - Balyaeva. There was no soundtrack. It is very similar to a phased overload of some substation, because the light faded out at intervals of 1-2 seconds. And with the same intervals, the glow and the radius of the flash intensified. But after 3-5 seconds the light appeared,”the reader describes what he saw. A similar phenomenon, according to readers, was observed in Nakhodka.
Bloggers reported that the emergency phone did not answer. Some users are sure that at this time the portal "triggered" or "this is the beginning of a zombie invasion."
It is indicative that at that time no reports of serious failures or accidents at power facilities were registered in the Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Primorsky Territory.
Throughout Tuesday, power engineers have been identifying the reasons for the surge. It was stated that there were violations in the operation of two 110 kV transmission lines - the A-Orlinaya line with a tap to the Golubinka substation and A-Zaliv with a tap to Golubinka.
Promotional video:
However, according to the press service of the Primorsk Electric Grids, thanks to the operation of the automatic protection system, there was no power outage for consumers, the operation of the power grid facilities of the regional center and other settlements was not disrupted in Vladivostok, the equipment continues to operate normally.
Immediately after the incident, in order to find out the reasons for the shutdown, the operational team of the branch of the DRSK "Primorskie Electric Networks" went to inspect the power lines, at present the work continues.
“On Monday at 21.10 local time in Vladivostok there was a short break in the operation of two power lines. A sharp drop in tension occurred in almost all areas of the city, as well as in settlements near Vladivostok. Presumably, the cause of the malfunctions was a third-party influence,”Tatiana Kravchenko, press secretary of DRSK, told RIA Novosti.
She explained that the trouble could have been caused by people working under the line. “Very often the cause of failures and major outages is uncoordinated work under power lines,” said Kravchenko. However, she was unable to comment on the information about the unusual glow over the city.
Ussuriysk Astrophysical Observatory, Gennady Kornienko, said that theoretically, solar flares could lead to interruptions in the operation of substations.
Based on media materials