Reporting by Shamim-ur-Rehman

 

Residents and push-cart vendors sleep on carts outside their houses
to escape the heat during a power outage in Karachi early morning June 18, 2009. — Reuters

 

KARACHI: Large parts of the city on Thursday afternoon were still without electricity nearly a day after a major power breakdown on Wednesday evening caused a major city-wide blackout.The fault occurred after major transmission lines were hit by a thunderstorm on Wednesday evening. According to KESC sources, the tripping in transmission lines at about 6.30 pm robbed the system of about 600MW fed by Pepco’s network, crippling the entire generation, transmission and distribution network.

The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation said that by 1 pm all 56 electricity grid stations serving the city were either fully or partially functional and the utility was working on restoring power throughout the city.

They said they were working cautiously to restore power in order to avoid the risk of overloading the system and causing another city-wide outage.

Sindh governor Ishratul Ibad earlier Thursday held a meeting with KESC’s CEO to discuss the situation. He scheduled another meeting at 4 pm after the situation failed to resolve.

Serious faults remained with the Jacob Lines and Garden area grid stations, KESC officials admitted.

Meanwhile, the major industrial hub of SITE was yet to have electricity restored as of 2pm Thursday, reducing business activity there to minimum levels.

Many residents across the city reported that their power was restored during the day but then went off again soon after.

Business activity remained light and traffic on the city’s thoroughfares thin as the lack of electricity and high humidity combined to keep people off the streets.

Experts said the breakdown was due to the power utility’s failure to invest in the city’s electricity transmission and distribution systems.

The sudden power failure on Wednesday evening brought work at the Karachi Airport and major hospitals to a halt. Vehicular traffic faced gridlocks and congestions on major arteries of the city as traffic signals stopped working.

Karachi, like the whole country, has long faced electricity supply problems.