At least two regions in Russias Far East faced blackouts on Friday after authorities held previously scheduled regionwide power outage drills.Peoplereported being stuck in traffic, at shopping malls and inside elevators in the regions of Khabarovsk and Primorye, where the city of Vladivostok is located.Earlier, the Primorye regions Energy Ministryannouncedthat it held a scheduled emergency response exercise related to the shutdown of a high-voltage power line.As part of the drill, a situation room was assembled to establish cooperation to quickly restore power supply to consumers, the ministry said in a statement.The Far Eastern Distribution Grid Company DRSK, which took part in the drills,said the outages were linked to equipment failure at one of the units of the Primorskaya thermal power plant.Acting Primorye region Energy Minister Yelena Shishcalled the outage after the drill a coincidence in comments to the Kremlin-linked Telegram news channel Shot.Shish laterinformedPrimorye region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako that emergency crews were on track to restore power to all consumers by Friday evening.
Kozhemyako said the regional water supply company promised to restore cold water overnight.Local mediareportedthat around 600 households were still without power and 1,000 without cold water in Vladivostok, a city with a population of more than 600,000.