UST Facilities Management Office (FMO) security engineer Jared Gunting confirmed that power has been restored at the University despite facing several setbacks the night before.
“Upon investigation last night, the initial observation was that the fuses were not properly attached, so what Meralco did last night was to replace it with another fuse. Unfortunately, it did not work as the fuse blew up again, but it has since been resolved earlier (today),” Gunting told The Flame.
Assessments are still being done by FMO to identify the leading cause of the outage. Preventive measures are also being undertaken to ensure the safety of Thomasians, the engineer added.
The power outage hit UST on Thursday night, April 4, at about 6:55 p.m., disrupting several onsite classes in affected areas, including those at the St. Raymund de Peñafort building.
Students inside St. Raymund’s were evacuated, however, some classes continued in buildings after regaining power via their generators.
According to Gunting, the St. Raymund’s and the Tan Yan Kee were the buildings most affected by the outage.
Other buildings that experienced disruptions but quickly had their power restored were the UST Main Building, UST Hospital, the UST Central Laboratory, Albertus Magnus, Beato Angelico and Buenaventura Garcia Paredes, O.P. buildings.
Onsite classes scheduled for April 5 were shifted to enhanced virtual mode.
Classes scheduled on Saturday, April 6, will resume onsite.
“FMO reported that our available power capacity will be able to cover the anticipated onsite usage based on the data that academic units provided,” Secretary General Fr. Louie Coronel, O.P. told The Flame in an email interview. F – with reports from Micah Pascua
