Two cities in Nagano Prefecture, Japan had a total of 25 thousand traffic lights disabled as a result of a buildup of bird droppings.
Two cities in Nagano Prefecture, Japan had a total of 25 thousand traffic lights disabled as a result of a buildup of bird droppings.
According to reports, the goop had built up on an insulator in Matsumoto.
The pile of droppings was so large that it oozed about a yard down the side of the insulator.
The Chubu Electric Power Company said that the seepage caused a short, which resulted in the insulator switching into shut down mode.
Among the undesirable side effects of the outage were the 25 thousand traffic signals, which remained out of service for about 30 minutes. During that time, police directed traffic. No outage-related accidents were reported.
Since the incident, Chubu Electric has announced that they have installed bird-proofed lines.
They were also sure to add that, “There aren’t many incidents of power outages caused by bird poo as far as we know.”
While some cultures believe that being the target of bird droppings is a good omen, predicting much future luck, Chubu Electric was reportedly not amused by such reassurances.
