South Africans are not unfamiliar with snakes cutting off power supplies. Eskom has implemented various stages of loadshedding, leaving the entire country without electricity for hours at a time. In Japan’s Fukushima province, it’s been lights out due to an actual reptile causing havoc.
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A snake caused a massive power outage that left nearly 10 000 homes without electricity in the city of Koriyama in northern Fukushima, Japan.
According to the Tohoku Electric Power company (TEPCO), the blackout was most likely caused by the snake slithering over a live wire, causing an energy surge through the snake’s body and into other live wires resulting in the system automatically shutting down.
Power has since been restored in the affected areas.
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Fukushima is currently experiencing a heatwave with temperatures rising above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) and there is concern from the Japanese government that the power grid is being strained due to the number of people relying on air conditioning to deal with the extreme heat and has appealed to people to conserve energy, especially in peak usage times to prevent power outages.
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South Africans are no strangers to power outages. In fact, we’ve pivoted in our lives to accommodate for the ongoing rolling blackouts as our electricity supply struggles to meet our electricity demand.
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