Noida: Around 1,200 residents of Sector 51 had to bear with prolonged power outage for eight hours on Tuesday after thieves decamped with transformer oil on Monday night and caused the electrical equipment to break down after some time.
Two transformers of 400 kVA each in D block were targeted by the thieves. Operating without oil, they overheated in a few hours and subsequently caught fire – eventually exploding around 1pm on Tuesday.
This left residents in around 300 houses without power through the evening until discom officials arranged for replacement transformers after filing a police complaint.
"We faced severe power disruption for around eight hours on Tuesday after two transformers exploded in D block. Officials told us that oil theft led to overheating and eventual failure of the transformers by Monday afternoon. The theft would probably have gone missing had there been no outage and officials hadn't inspected the transformers," said Sanjeev Kumar, RWA general secretary of Block C to F of Sector 51.
As houses plunged into darkness, discom officials were notified and a police complaint was registered after an inspection of the transformers.
Executive engineer Saurabh Kumar Pandey and subdivisional officer Samarth Srivastava arrived at the site late in the evening. By then, the residents of the sector had already endured a power cut lasting more than seven hours.
Srivastava said supply was restored around 9pm on Tuesday.
The thieves remained at large till late on Wednesday evening, prompting the RWA to increase vigilance, particularly around electrical installations in the sector. Security guards were instructed to maintain extra surveillance to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Transformer oil is a highly refined mineral or synthetic oil used to insulate and cool electrical equipment like transformers, capacitors, circuit breakers, and switches.