Power cut in Malta: is it just you or the whole area?

If anyone is in danger — someone has had a shock, there is a fire, there are sparks, a burning smell or a broken or low-hanging cable in the street — ring 112 first. Do not start troubleshooting. Enemalta also asks to be told about damaged or dangerous network equipment, including broken aerial lines, low-hanging lines, dislodged cable brackets and sparks, and about the need for emergency disconnection after severe damage including fire. If someone has been injured, do not improvise first aid from anything you read online; call 112 and follow what the operator tells you.

Everything below assumes nobody is hurt and nothing is burning.

Step one: look out of the window

Before you touch anything in your meter cupboard, find out whether the problem is yours at all. Enemalta lists four causes of a supply interruption: planned maintenance, unpaid invoices, a fault in your internal electricity circuit, or a fault on the distribution network. Two of those are the street's problem, one is the bank's, and one is yours — and they look identical from your sofa.

• Are the street lights on? Are your neighbours' windows lit, or the shop sign across the road?
• If you live in a block, is the common stairwell lighting on? Is the lift working?
• Check Enemalta's Live Outage Map. It distinguishes planned outages today, high-voltage outage areas and future planned outages. You can also log in with your eID to see faults affecting your own account, which is the quickest way to tell whether Enemalta already has a record against your address.

If the street is dark and the map confirms it, your job is to report it and wait. If the street is lit and only your property is out, the fault is most likely inside your installation.

Step two: if only your home is out, check the board

Here is an honest caveat. No Maltese authority publishes a householder's check-before-you-call list. Enemalta's guidance tells you how to report a problem, not how to diagnose one. So the steps below come from the Australian regulator Energy Safe Victoria, and we are flagging that because it matters: it is sensible general advice from a reputable regulator, but it was not written for Maltese installations.

Australian safety guidance advises checking whether your safety switch has tripped, and resetting it. If it will not reset, that is your cue to call a licensed electrician rather than keep trying. A switch that refuses to stay in is telling you something is still faulty downstream of it.

Two further points from the same Australian guidance, both about what happens when the power comes back:

• Switch off appliances before the power returns. An oven, hob or heater left switched on when supply is restored to an empty house is a fire risk.
• If your lights are dim or flickering, unplug the appliances you can easily reach. Enemalta separately asks customers to report loose connections and flickering, so a persistent flicker is worth a call either way.

On generators, the Australian guidance is blunt and worth repeating: never run a portable generator indoors or in an enclosed space, because of carbon monoxide, and never connect one to a wall socket or a switchboard. Back-feeding a generator into the wiring endangers utility workers and your neighbours.

If you are a landlord being called by a tenant, the same sequence applies — street first, board second — but bear in mind that in a block, anything beyond your own meter and your own distribution board may sit in common parts and fall under the condominium rather than under you.

Step three: reporting it to Enemalta

Enemalta's current "When things go wrong" page gives a 24/7 helpline of 8000 2224, and says you can also report through its power cuts page.

We have to flag a discrepancy. Enemalta's own 2018 Customer Charter prints the helpline as 8007 2224. The two Enemalta documents disagree, and we cannot tell you which is live today. We have gone with the number on the current web page. Check enemalta.com.mt before you dial, and if the first number does not connect, try the other.

What happens when you get through depends on what Enemalta already knows. If the outage is already known, you will be told technicians are working on it. If only your property is affected, a technical response team is sent.

The Charter also explains something that catches people out during storms: during widespread disturbances, callers may hear a recorded message naming the affected areas and the expected restoration time, and are asked to hang up if they are in one of those areas, so the lines stay free for people reporting something new. That is not the system fobbing you off — if your street is named in the recording, your fault is already logged.

How long should it take?

The 2018 Customer Charter sets out Enemalta's aims:

The sources do not say how quickly a technical response team reaches a single affected property, and they do not distinguish between Malta and Gozo. If you are in Gozo, assume nothing about crew availability from this page — ask when you report.

If equipment is damaged, Enemalta's page sets out a claims route: damage claims on Form CM, disputes to the Advisory Board via Form M2 for claims up to EUR 3,500, and a further dispute route through REWS under S.L.545.30.

The fridge and the freezer

Again, no Maltese authority publishes this, so the guidance below is foreign and we are labelling it as such. Malta's summer heat is not reflected in the UK figures; the Hong Kong regulator's advice is written for a hotter climate and gives shorter fridge times.

UK Food Standards Agency guidance says:

• Cuts under four hours are unlikely to affect the safety of chilled or frozen food.
• Keep the doors shut. A fridge stays cold for about four hours; a full freezer about 48 hours, a half-full one about 24 hours. These are estimates and depend on the appliance.
• Food is fine in a fridge below 8C. Once it is 8C or above, eat refrigerated foods within four hours, and discard use-by or "keep refrigerated" foods and leftovers after four hours unless power returns.
• Eat in this order: refrigerated food first, then defrosted food that needs no cooking, then room-temperature perishables, then tinned and dried food.
• Take extra care with food for young children, pregnant women, older people and anyone with a health condition. Use a fridge thermometer. Prepare infant formula with boiled water, or use ready-to-feed.

Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety, writing for a hot climate, gives a fridge figure of roughly two to four hours and the same freezer figures (about 48 hours full, 24 hours half full). It advises noting the time the cut started. For perishables held between 4C and 60C: under two hours, refrigerate or use; two to four hours, use immediately; over four hours, discard. Never taste food to judge whether it is safe. When in doubt, throw it out.

The short version

1. Danger, injury, fire, sparks or a fallen line — 112.
2. Street dark too? Report to Enemalta on 8000 2224 (verify on enemalta.com.mt) and check the Live Outage Map.
3. Only your home? Check whether the safety switch has tripped and reset it. If it will not reset, stop and call a licensed electrician.
4. Switch appliances off so they are not live when supply returns.
5. Keep the fridge and freezer shut, and note the time the power went off.