Shocking

The Ho Chi Minh City Power Company has sealed off and cut off power supply to 61 ATMs after a 10 year old girl was electrocuted by one in District 1 on Mac Thi Buoi street.

Investigations by police in District 1 found an electric wire running across a set of stairs leading to the ATM. The wire, which was set up by Agribank to provide power and light, had many open joints and was leaking electricity.

A total of 61 ATMs were found with electrical problems as of Sunday afternoon. Tran Dung, manager of technical and labor safety at the company, said the ATMs had been isolated and their power cut. Most of the ATMs were set up by the banks themselves, they've been have been asked to fix their machines.

Many ATM customers of Vietcombank have reported experiencing slight electric shocks at the machine on Cao Thang Street, some when leaning on the iron door, some when typing the numbers in, VOVNews reported Sunday.

Full story

Personally, I've had no shocks from ATMs except for the shocking bank rates compared to what's available at gold shops and money changers.

Wiring solution?

In my previous post I showed pictures of power cables, mainly on Trang Hung Dau and mused about them being moved underground some day.


Co-incidentally Vietnam Daily News published an article about the same thing.Full article here

The main concern is that there are no standards in place and cables are being buried in a haphazard manner. On Tran Hung Dao they'll be in lined ditches with power and telecom wires kept apart. On Le Than Ton they'll be buried 75cm underground in plastic pipes with no concrete support.

Great, the era of the permanent roadworks is dawning.

Power talks

You know what it's like, you stop seeing things after a while then something happens and whatever it is is back in focus.

I'd been trying to take some pictures of buildings and bemoaning the power cables always getting in the way so, of course, soon I see nothing but power cables.

These are fairly well ordered, there's still a lot of them though.


The busier the road, the more houses and businesses there are, the greater the need for power and things start to get a bit more complex.



Then there's this, it reminds me of the last time I decorated a Christmas tree. Snagged, tangled and horribly confused.

I suppose one day they'll all be underground and what excuse will I have for not being able to take good pictures of buildings then?