Stealing electricity in Southeast Asia

[u/ashsabre]

[u/FMichigan]

Could someone eli5 me this ? How does this work and why is it dangerous ?

[u/fuzzydunloblaw → u/FMichigan]

The clothes pins pierce the wires' insulation to steal power from the metal wires inside them.

Wires are insulated to prevent shorting out and shocks. Now if someone touches both the clothes pins or exposed metal, they'll become part of the circuit of electricity and be shocked. Also if the exposed wires get rained or wet on it'll create a short and/or potential expanded shock scenario.

[u/DrMantisToboggan45 → u/fuzzydunloblaw]

This wire isn’t any type of service wire tho, this is like an extension cable at best. If you tried something like this on something as small as 4kv they’d have a very different life going forward, if at all

[u/fuzzydunloblaw → u/DrMantisToboggan45]

Even an extension cable could be lethal if there's not any modern safety cut-offs on the circuit