Overview

• A widespread power outage affected 10,000 households in Wuppertal's Barmen and Elberfeld districts on Thursday evening.
• The outage began at 21:30 when a marten entered an electrical substation and contacted live components, causing a transformer shutdown.
• Electricity was fully restored by 23:00, following prompt action by Wuppertaler Stadtwerke, the local utility company.
• The marten, which bypassed standard protective barriers, was found dead from electrocution, highlighting the risks small animals pose to infrastructure.
• Wuppertaler Stadtwerke is now reassessing and enhancing protective systems to prevent similar incidents in the future.