Electrical substation explosion prompts evacuation of Carlisle shopping centre

What happened

At about 12.45 on 18 October 2019, an electrical explosion occurred in a substation at the Lanes shopping centre in Carlisle. Alarms were triggered and staff and shoppers were evacuated onto Scotch Street. Witnesses reported a loud bang and smoke from the substation cabinet near the West Tower Street entrance. The Lanes said everyone was accounted for. Fire crews attended and, on advice from Electricity North West, earthed the substation and used breathing apparatus to check for fire.

Positive pressure ventilation was used to clear smoke from the corridor. The centre reopened at about 14:45. The fault left 55 homes without power. Electricity North West restored power to five customers by 13:40 and engineers continued work to restore the remaining customers.

Contributing factors

The source does not state the cause of the electrical fault.

Lessons learned

1. Shopping centres with substations on the premises should agree evacuation and isolation procedures with the network operator in advance.
2. Fire crews should wait for the network operator to confirm isolation and earthing before entering an electrical substation.
3. Network operators should give affected customers clear restoration updates, since some homes remained without power after the centre reopened.

More lessons on worker safety and safe systems of work, fire suppression and firefighting, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Source

newsandstar.co.uk