How did this happen?

[La Poste]

A jogger in his 50s has died of severe burns after an electricity cable came down in a field.

Emergency services were called to Debden Road in Newport, near Saffron Walden, Essex, at 20:40 BST on Tuesday.
The man, who is from the Saffron Walden area, suffered severe burns and was pronounced dead at the scene, Essex fire service has confirmed.

BBC News - Saffron Walden jogger dies in power cable incident

Do you think it was something to do with the heat we are experiencing at the moment?
You know cables expanding in the day and contracting at night?

 

[timbobelfast]

Probaly pikeys going about their usual business.

 

[Knobhead]

Unfortunately the protection for MV OH lines in rural areas can’t be set as fine as UG cables. In a rural area there are more situations where an intermittent earth fault can occur, trees and birds landing on the cross bars etc. Without course protection and things like auto re-close switches farmer Brown would be in darkness numerous times.

I’ve seen one phase of an 11KV line come down, it was arcing and sparking for over an hour before the power was manually cut. This fault was only 1 ½ miles from the main switch yard, so the protection would be course.

 

[La Poste]

Thanks Tony.

I would have thought there would be some sort of monitoring device for earth faults at the sub station, you know like a zig zag transformer or something.

I am not very knowledgeable about such things but surely an alarm must have gone off somewhere if a live 11KV cable was just laying directly on the ground.

 

[Knobhead]

There are monitoring devices, but the fault has to be of sufficient magnitude to operate the device. It’s just like a household S type RCD, you can have a fault but it’s to low to operate the device.
The first the board probably knew about the fault would be some one complaining of a loss of supply.

 

[La Poste]

Actually the link to the story has now been updated with more information.

The cable was in fact hanging low across a path and sounds like it was not touching the ground at all.

The runner must have made contact with the 11 KV low hanging cable and died as a result.

Nasty way to go and he sounded like a decent sort of man.

 

[Robinwood]

If any of you guys share safety measures on this topic then it will be a great useful to many ! :nopity:

 

[La Poste]

Jeez what's going on?

The Country's falling apart:

"Three hundred people were led to safety after a power cable fell into a camping area at the Rock and Blues Old School Weekend at Coney Grey Farm in Pentrich.

Station Manager David Crowther, from Derbyshire Fire and Rescue, said: "An electrical cable fell from an overhead pylon striking the camp - it was a lucky escape for a lot of people."

BBC News - Power cable forces Derbyshire music festival evacuation

 

[Scotty_B]

Scary indeed.

 

[Des 56]

This thread just goes to show and to be warned,if you are a camper, don't go jogging

 

[trev]

See, I knew jogging was dangerous

Sorry

 

[La Poste]

Well at least things haven't got this bad.....Yet?

A massive power breakdown has hit northern and eastern India for a second day running, officials say.

Officials said there was a total blackout in Delhi. All Metro services had been halted and staff were trying to evacuate passengers, a Delhi Metro spokesman told the BBC.

Power ministry officials said the eastern grid had also collapsed.

A massive power failure caused severe disruption and travel chaos across northern India on Monday.
It was unclear why the supply collapsed on Monday but reports say some states may have been using more power than authorised.

BBC News - Huge power failure hits north and east India for second day

 

[snowhead]

nothing here, (already posted.)