Karachi power breakdown: Sindh CM reminds Centre he had warned it could happen

Murad Ali Shah says he had expressed his apprehensions over "fragile and unreliable" electricity transmission...

The Sindh chief minister wrote a letter to the federal power and water minister on Sunday reminding him about the apprehensions he had earlier expressed to him over the fragile and unreliable electricity transmission network that could collapse during Ramazan.

Murad Ali Shah added that his apprehensions had come true when Karachi and many other parts of Sindh had suffered a massive power breakdown in the wee hours of the day.

In his letter to Khawaja Asif, Shah wrote: "My apprehensions sadly came true on the 1st day of Ramzan when 13 districts of rural Sindh and half of Karachi division plunged into darkness, as a result of [the] 500 KV Hubco-Jamshoro transmission line tripping at around 2:15 am."



Shah said the sudden tripping of the fragile high transmission lines created a cascading effect not only in the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company and Sukkur Electric Power Company distribution systems but also affected the K-Electric which was forced to enter into an island mode for system safety by shutting down power supply to large areas of Karachi.

He further wrote: "One of the major effects of sudden power outages in Karachi is the complete disruption of the water supply system."

He added that the current power outages had disrupted water supply from the Gharo, Dhabeji, Pipri, COD, Hub and North-East Karachi pumping stations which primarily supply drinking water to the entire city.



"Karachi suffered a loss of about 150 million gallons per day water due to this power breakdown. The restoration of line pack pressure requires 24 to 36 hours if power supply is restored to all interconnected pumping stations," he added.