SXMElections.com

BONAIRE--Water and Energy Bonaire (WEB) has confirmed that the electricity blackout which occurred last Saturday was the result of sabotage.

The government-owned utility company started an investigation immediately to determine the cause and extent of the outage, which turned out to be island-wide. The 10-hour power cut was sparked by destruction at Karpata of two underground fibre optic cables that provide the connection between WEB and the feeder diesel plant of ContourGlobal.

WEB filed a complaint of suspected sabotage with the Caribbean Netherlands police. The people responsible knew very well what they were doing, according to management member Roy Silberie. “They dug a hole exactly where needed to access the cables and set them on fire”

Telecommunication- and internet cables in the same location from local phone company Telbo to ContourGlobal and Bonaire’s petroleum transhipment facility Bopec were also damaged in the process.

At first there was fear repairs would require another full power interruption for at least eight hours on Sunday, but that turned out not to be the case.

The main cables from ContourGlobal to WEB are being partly replaced, “keeping in mind the security of our employees.” The company added that the transport cable now in operation guaranteed the supply for the whole island.

Nevertheless, there was another outage Monday morning, this time due to the sudden loss of production from the windmill park at Mortin, which led WEB’s safety system to automatically shut off several neighbourhoods temporarily.