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Taiwan restores power after blackout hits 4 million homes
- World’s biggest contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. also suffered a ‘brief power dip’
- Fire officials rescued more than 400 people trapped in lifts
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Tech powerhouse Taiwan resumed power early in the evening on Thursday following several hours of phased blackouts island-wide, a problem that briefly impacted major semiconductor firm TSMC.
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Around 4 million homes were affected on the island of 24 million people after an outage at a coal- and gas-fired power plant that was connected to a failure of the electricity grid.
The world’s biggest contract chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, said some of its facilities suffered a “brief power dip”, but power had been restored.
Officials at three major science parks in Hsinchu, Tainan and Taichung, where TSMC and other semiconductor firms all have large operations, said there was no impact on the operations of the major chip makers.
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Normal power was restored at 8pm (local time), electricity provided Taipower said, with supplies having been affected from early afternoon.
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Speaking to reporters at the presidential office, President Tsai Ing-wen apologised for the blackouts, which left hundreds trapped in lifts across Taiwan.
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