Power outage puts Orchard Central in darkness

A major power outage at Orchard Central from 2pm Saturday led to most of the mall tenants shuttering their shops early for the day.

The outage also caused several drivers to be stuck in the mall’s car parks for more than an hour, until mall staff redirected traffic to the unaffected Orchard Gateway car park. 

Said Mr Ken Chan, 36, who was trapped in the car park for nearly 30 minutes: "If not for our headlights, it would be pitch black.

"There were 30 of us here all stuck because the gantry is inoperable. We cannot move forward or reverse, and none of us dared to move."

Staff working at some shops told The New Paper on Sunday that they had to explain to customers why they had to close early.

Singapore Football

Lions end 13-match winless streak

Mar 23, 2018

Some even placed handwritten signs in front of the store to divert customers to other outlets at Orchard Road.

The heavy downpour on Saturday afternoon is believed to be the cause of the outage, said the building management after it conducted its preliminary investigation.

By 5pm, power was restored to most of the ground level shops and the lifts, but the East Wing of the mall was still in darkness at press time.

This is the Far East Organization statement in full:

At around 2pm today (Saturday, 12 December), Orchard Central experienced a power outage, which affected the East Wing of the mall. We took immediate actions to rectify the situation.

Within a couple of hours, we managed to restore power in some shops as well as the lifts. 

To ensure the safety of shoppers, we instantly deployed staff on each floor to guide shoppers to carparks, lifts and locations where they needed to go.

We regret any inconvenience caused to our tenants and shoppers.

Based on our preliminary investigations, the possible cause of the incident was due to the heavy downpour this afternoon. However, the details will only be available after the full investigation is completed.

Our engineers are still working around the clock to get the power fully restored. We will keep tenants and shoppers updated on the progress and provide assistance and support where required.