SEOUL, Jan. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — More than two-thirds of all blackout accidents caused by birds in the last three years were the work of magpies, South Korea’s state-run utility firm said Sunday.
The Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) reported that out of all 133 bird-led blackouts that happened between 2018 and 2020, 93 cases (69.9 percent) were caused by magpies.
Some 121,589 households were affected by these blackouts over the last three years. The number of accidents has been on a constant increase from 33 cases in 2018 to 48 in 2019 and 52 in 2020.
Magpies are known to collect branches, wire or even coat hangars to build nests in February, during which blackout accidents primarily occur. They complete their nests in three or four days.
Even if the nests are taken down, they have the habit of rebuilding their nests in the same location, making it difficult to drive them away from the area for good.
KEPCO spent 95.3 billion won (US$78.6 million) to take down more than 1 million bird nests between 2018 and 2020.
Image Credit: Yonhap / KEPCO / photonews@koreabizwire.com
