Is the UK the only country that continues to permit and deploy TN-C-S earthing systems?

If all the countries listed have PME like arrangements why is it that from what I have experienced only UK

One (unsubstantiated) theory might be that the UK's distribution cables are in a worse state than those in many other countries - we perhaps had a widespread network earlier than some, didn't get a massive rebuilding program after WWII, and in recent decades the political arrangements of splitting and commercialising the ownership of the network (where the natural priority became short term rewarding of shareholders rather than keeping the system in long term good condition). Even today a substantial amount of the LV distribution networks rely on old lead & paper underground cables, that only get attended to when they quite literally go bang.

   - Andy.

Agreed,

Historically ('50s, UK) home electrics weren't allowed to connect to the Board's [lead sheath] earth and a local earth was required, hence water and gas pipes (highly effective because of surface area (per foot) and length, cf earth rods..)). (source: Father-in-law, often!)

I guess that at some point the switch was made to PME and that Board's had to provide their earth for cross bonding.

Meanwhile the Australian commentator is working (possibly exclusively) with twin overhead connections, so see a completely different set of fault styles and quantities. If there is no protective earth conductor then it can't be faulty, bypassed, or be a bypass!

in the UK, twin overhead singles are considered an acceptable PME service, since about 1981,  so long as the neutral is double crimped and tied down to gnd with pole base electrodes of 20 ohms or less in total effect spaced at regular intervals. Trees taking out just the lower wire are a rare but not unknown cause of lost neutral.
Newer overhead stuff going in now is ABC or concentric which sidesteps that issue, but introduces other failure modes.. There is no free lunch.

I don't think that other countries installations are always much better than the UKs, there are good and bad examples one can find anywhere. Certainly travelling either east or south brings up many examples of 'oh wow'  practice. Even within the same country things can be pretty patchy.
M.

I don't think that other countries installations are always much better than the UKs,

But of those that use PME or equivalent? (With the possible exception of SA, which if I recall developed their own version of a broken (or perhaps stolen) PEN detector - something like an RCD plus local reference electrode) some time ago).

   - Andy.

Oh yes. Definitely including  those that use something a bit like PME albeit with legal variations on who was allowed to do the NE bond and where. Most of my personal experience relates to the former East Berlin, but if what the other chaps said about failing aluminium was true, then in some ways that was the good bit of the bloc.. However that has been slowly renovated, so I suspect a  lot of the worst of it has now been redone to VDE whatever number applies or in places like Poland, to their equivalent regs.
recall this thread, which sadly has lost its scary photos in the software update.

South Africa is the better engineered part of Africa in many ways and something like PME is one of the many standards.
If you go the other way, by the time you get to south america, even the 220V parts  like regions of Brazil however, things like basic insulation are missing as well so the fact there is an NE link in a consumer unit is not a total surprise and it really does not matter as the shower is wired in singles  & may not be earthed anyway...

Mike.

Oh yes. Definitely including  those that use something a bit like PME albeit with legal variations on who was allowed to do the NE bond and where. Most of my personal experience relates to the former East Berlin, but if what the other chaps said about failing aluminium was true, then in some ways that was the good bit of the bloc.. However that has been slowly renovated, so I suspect a  lot of the worst of it has now been redone to VDE whatever number applies or in places like Poland, to their equivalent regs.
recall this thread, which sadly has lost its scary photos in the software update.

South Africa is the better engineered part of Africa in many ways and something like PME is one of the many standards.
If you go the other way, by the time you get to south america, even the 220V parts  like regions of Brazil however, things like basic insulation are missing as well so the fact there is an NE link in a consumer unit is not a total surprise and it really does not matter as the shower is wired in singles  & may not be earthed anyway...

Mike.