Imogen Calderwood
ONLINE gambling services have today been restored following an explosion at Gibraltar’s main power station.
No one was harmed in yesterday’s explosion and ensuing blaze, but the interruption to Gibtelecom services brought down online services for several global casinos.
Online gambling giants William Hill, Ladbrokes and Betfred were among those affected by the blaze, caused by an explosion in Engine Number One at the power station.
All three operators, among the 26 online casinos and gaming operators lured to the Rock by low taxes, have now restored service.
A spokesman for William Hill, Graham Sharpe, said that 50 staff members had to be evacuated from offices near the power station.
“It’s just one of those freak events nobody could have predicted,” he said, after the gambling operator’s services were interrupted for more than two hours.
“There will be those who will claim they would have backed a winner, but there will be others who have been saved from backing a loser,” he added.
Ladbrokes tweeted after the fire: “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Just before 11am this morning, Betfred said that they are still trying to restore functionality: “We will update once full functionalist has been restored. We thank all of our customers for their patience.”
Power outages were reported across the Rock yesterday after the explosion at Engine Number One, and many buildings nearest the power station had to be evacuated.
Billowing plumes of thick black smoke led to residents being advised to keep doors and windows closed and to stay indoors, to prevent inhalation.
The fire was quickly brought under control by Gibraltar’s emergency services, and engineers are currently trying to establish the cause of the explosion.
Glad they have got their priorities right.
PM – exactly they do have their priorities right and that is why power was turned off completely. With power switching equipment located at the powerstation, keeping the other generating stations going could have resulted in power lines into the station remaining live.
With the firebrigade entering the generation station, and lots of water and foam, this would not be safe. Hence, for saftey reasons all power was cut while the fire brigade were tackling the fire.
While the same principles would be deployed in a larger country, (all directly linked stations would also be cut), the wider area grid would cover it for most customers. When you scale things down, this is what happens – you just accept it. (People on islands accept it naturally, due to spanish political hostility, people in Gibraltar accept in naturally too – and always have done).
oh. I thought PM meant the shove was on to restore the Rock´s low tax online gambling dependency.
excuse me. My english is basic..