A suspected vandal was crushed to death under a collapsed transmission tower along the 330kV Ughelli-Benin line in Delta State, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said on Saturday.
According to TCN, its linesmen discovered the body during an intensive patrol by the Delta Sub-Region Lines Maintenance Department following an earth-fault trip on the transmission line.
The patrol team traced the fault to Tower 101, which had collapsed, and found the victim’s body trapped and crushed between the tower members.
Further inspection revealed that Tower 101 on the adjacent Ughelli-Sapele 330kV transmission line had also been extensively vandalised, although the structure was still standing at the time of the inspection.
TCN condemned the act of vandalism and urged host communities and members of the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities around power installations to security agencies or the nearest TCN office.
The company said combating infrastructure vandalism requires collective action, warning that attacks on power facilities can trigger outages, destroy critical national assets and put lives at risk.
