Explosion at Yeoville Telkom building

This is really sad, the worst part of this, it that most of you are joyful about this incident. One person is believed to be trapped by the rubble, and all you guys can post is smileys. Shame on you.
 
And tune in tomorrow this time for another episode of Parastatal wars: Eskom vs Telkom!
 
timgaul said:
Oh good gracious - it can only be Eskom! Only they could fsck up this badly!

This was like when the Hurst Hill Substation in Westdene went kablooey!
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How about when a transformer at the Fordsburg substation went kablooey? That demolished a building

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, Yeoville falls squarely inside the operational area of Joburg (City-) Power, not Eskom.

But anyway, a bit of an explanation is probably warranted:

The transformers are oil cooled. But if the oil leaks, or becomes vaporised for any reason, you are looking at a fuel/air bomb, basically.

See this video for an example. Note the initial explosion is purely to vaporise the fuel, and doesn't have any effect on the dummy. It is the second explosion that destroys the mannekin.

In a similar way, if the oil cooling the transformer gets vaporised, perhaps due to a short in the transformer itself, and then gets ignited by e.g. an arc between transformer windings, boom!
 
news24 said:
This is really sad, the worst part of this, it that most of you are joyful about this incident. One person is believed to be trapped by the rubble, and all you guys can post is smileys. Shame on you.
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ROFL, awww shame..

:D :D :D :D

Shame on us for posting smiley's :D. Have you read your Sig lately??? I think the SHAME falls on you ;)
 
news24 said:
This is really sad, the worst part of this, it that most of you are joyful about this incident. One person is believed to be trapped by the rubble, and all you guys can post is smileys. Shame on you.
Click to expand...
I thought the very same. Someone is apparently seriously injured, and someone else is missing, and above all that cars, buildings have been damaged / are without lights (who do you think has to pay for it at the end of the day? More reason for price hike) and then we see posts with fat ":D"'s. Doesn't make too much sense, but anyway obviously people have learned to switch off to news about disaster/pain in SA and turn it into happy days until they're the next victim... big jokes then
 
Well, if Telkom have the same people in charge of susbstation maintenance as they do for residential ADSL, then I'm not surprised the damned transformer exploded. It's probably been spitting sparks for the past six months.
 
fragtion_ said:
I thought the very same. Someone is apparently seriously injured, and someone else is missing, and above all that cars, buildings have been damaged / are without lights (who do you think has to pay for it at the end of the day? More reason for price hike) and then we see posts with fat ":D"'s. Doesn't make too much sense, but anyway obviously people have learned to switch off to news about disaster/pain in SA and turn it into happy days until they're the next victim... big jokes then
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LOL again :D :D :D

If you really "cared" so much, go make a donation to help the "victims" instead of trying to make people change what they posted :)
If ya dont likez teh comments, just close your eyes and skip the ones you dont like ;)

We live in SA, Corruption, Crime and all those Jazy things are a part of our daily lives. Yes its ****(I know I have been a victim quite a few times) but if we had to all fall down and start crying for every tragedy, we would permanently be crying.
 
general_koffi said:
Well, if Telkom have the same people in charge of susbstation maintenance as they do for residential ADSL, then I'm not surprised the damned transformer exploded. It's probably been spitting sparks for the past six months.
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Telkom has been conducting FIFA audits on all exchanges and substations for the past year so I doubt it has been spitting sparks for the last 6 months.

Could have been a freak accident.
 
I wonder where that transformer was manufactured.

A global view on drop in safety qualities of transformers:

Loose international transformer norms and lack of regulation

The Norm IEC 76 only includes basic electrical measurements and does not cover mechanical design or protection. This weakness, in addition to the globalization market, has opened the door to a disturbing drop in the quality of new transformers. By comparison, pressure vessels have to comply with adequate rules and controls. Such directives do not exist for transformers that have proven to be more dangerous.
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and:

A one-year research project led to the discovery of 730 transformer explosions in the USA only Click for document #5. Many experts anticipate that the number of failures will increase significantly in the near future, from 1% in 2001 to 2% in 2008 Click for document #17. In addition, the shorter lifetime of new transformers will sharply increase above this rate after 2008 Click for document #18.
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http://www.transproco.com/why-transformers-explode.htm
 
Thats what happens if infrastructure is neglected.

I hope the missing&injured get found.
 
general_koffi said:
Well, if Telkom have the same people in charge of susbstation maintenance as they do for residential ADSL, then I'm not surprised the damned transformer exploded. It's probably been spitting sparks for the past six months.
Click to expand...

Well I know for a fact that this transformer was an Eskom transformer and was not only feeding the telkom building but also the neighboring buildings. The transformer was only housed in the Telkom building as it was part of an age old agreement.....the old post office days. I visited the building many years ago, so I know what i am talking about
 
Well, I for one is a bit baffled by this Transformer Explosion.
Normally when a oil transformer do explode, there is a huge fireball and resultant fire involved.
Now if I understand this correctly, there was only an explosion and no fire?
If that is indeed the case, it could be the switchgear that exploded and not the transformer itself.
 
Two or three injured. Pity it happened on a day when all the Telkom employees were in the office...
 
Transformers cant explode like that. It must be swamp gas in manhole, from which lid was blasted away for a good 500m.
 
The transformers were in a separate room within the exchange building (co-location agreement).
 
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