FRUSTRATION is mounting amongst consumers in Paphos as random power cuts continue to sweep the district, causing havoc to day to day life, especially with the randomness of it all.
“There seems to be absolutely no logical daily pattern in the cuts and its making life very difficult,” said Paphos businessman Spyros Antoniades.
Residents, businessmen and holiday makers are all reporting daily cuts with some areas being left without electricity supply for hours on end, while others have an uninterrupted supply.
Residents living in the south of Anarvargos village, closest to the general hospital say they have had a continuous power supply while others living only half a kilometre away in the north of the village are reporting regular daily cuts for two hour periods.
British ex pat resident Linda Carrington told the Sunday Mail: “I live in the tourist area in Kato Paphos and we have had a supply without any cuts in power since Tuesday. I don’t know if it’s because we live in the tourist area or not, but I have friends who live in Emba and they didn’t have electricity all day on Thursday, it only came on during the evening.”
Large swathes of the Universal area of Kato Paphos which is densely populated and found close to the main tourist area seem to be one of the worst hit with residents reporting power being switched off up to five times a day for at least two hours at a time.
Angry Paphos resident Andy Demitriou said: “I am so disgusted with the government and I hold them fully responsible for the deaths on Monday. They are murderers. And now they are punishing the people. How do they expect us to live like this and I’ve heard the situation could remain as it is for six months.”
He added: “They need to make a plan for each area of every city and tell us what times we will have power. This is the only way which we will manage to get by.”
His girlfriend agreed. “It’s the summer, it’s hot, people are still angry over the explosion and the government is doing nothing. The economy is already in trouble in Paphos and this will kill us off.”
Restaurants, banks, cafés, clubs, bars, hairdressers and shops are all reporting problems.
‘I spent ages today trying to find a branch of my bank which had electricity so that I could do my banking said a disgruntled customer.
A British resident said: “It’s very hard to find a generator and most of the few people who do have them for sale are being bloody greedy and asking up to five times as much for them as before the explosion.
It’s unbelievable.”
Pensioner Doreen Maitland said, “we are all doing our best to conserve energy and I’m not switching on my fan or air conditioning to try and help but its so hot and its starting to make me feel unwell.
Angela Thompson is in Cyprus for her daughters wedding and said,” The bridal party was all having our hair done when the power suddenly went off .I don’t mind so much for me but I felt for my daughter who was in the middle of having her hair blow dried.”
The mother of the bride continued, “we were informed about the explosion on Monday and I think it’s a terrible thing to happen, but it must be difficult for everyone not to know if you will have electricity or not.”
An off duty traffic policemen who said he was concerned that sporadic cuts in power to traffic lights will be the cause of a major road traffic accident.
“It’s only a matter of time before vehicles slam into each other at the intersections. Drivers are now becoming frustrated with the situation and you can see they aren’t driving as carefully as a couple of days ago; unfortunately I believe we will see a major accident within days.”
In the meantime, it appears that some areas of Limassol, including villages situated close to the site of the explosion have had a constant power supply since Tuesday.
One man said, “I don’t think the authorities want to push us anymore. We live close to the blast and I think they are afraid to anger us further.”
The Paphos branch of the EAC was unavailable for comment.
