Cable blaze that sparked huge Hong Kong blackout likely to have been caused by fluorescent light that caught fire, says CLP

A blaze in June that sparked Hong Kong’s worst power outage in decades was likely to have been caused by a 30-year-old fluorescent light that caught fire inside a cable bridge, the electricity company involved has revealed.

CLP Power on Friday disclosed details of its final report two months after the cable bridge fire in Yuen Long plunged about 175,000 households and businesses into darkness, noting that no fire detection or protection system was installed inside the bridge.

“According to the investigation report, the most likely [cause of the blaze] is that the fluorescent light inside the cable bridge caught fire first, and then affected the communication cable underneath it,” CLP Power managing director Chiang Tung-keung said. “The fire spread to the transmission cable … and across the bridge.”

On June 21, the cable bridge carrying three high-voltage lines caught fire and collapsed, leaving homes, hospitals, businesses and the railway network across the western New Territories without electricity. Populated districts such as Yuen Long, Tuen Mun and Tin Shui Wai were affected.

A fluorescent light causing a fire was “a rare occurrence”, but such products could overheat due to factors such as deterioration, according to the report. It added that the light tube was most probably switched on before the incident but it was difficult to determine as most equipment at the scene was damaged.

The power supplier added that the light tube has been in use since the cable bridge was commissioned in 1992.