A power failure has brought large parts of the Canary Island of La Gomera, which is particularly popular with tourists from Germany, to a standstill.
The failure occurred at three in the morning and stopped around 6 p.m. local time (7 p.m. CEST), as the island council announced. According to the available knowledge, all of the approximately 22,000 inhabitants of the Atlantic island belonging to Spain are affected. The operation of the airport, the hospital and the port of La Gomera was maintained thanks to generators, it said.
Fire in thermal power plant reason for power failure
The reason for the failure was a fire in the El Palmar thermal power plant near the capital San Sebastián de la Gomera. The power company Endesa worked to repair the damage. An extensive restoration of the power grid was promised by the island council for late Sunday evening. The President of the Island Council, Casimiro Curbelo, spoke of an “extraordinary situation” that “affects people’s lives, the functioning of public services and of course the economy of the island”.
With an area of approximately 370 square kilometers, La Gomera is one of the smallest Canary Islands. For comparison: It is smaller than the federal state of Bremen, which has 419 square kilometers. Around 60 percent of the 300,000 or so tourists who visit La Gomera every year come from Germany. Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel was also there. On La Gomera, the focus is not on sun and beach tourism, but on travelers who enjoy hiking and water sports or whale and dolphin watching, among other things.
