Sindh spends night in darkness

HYDERABAD: Soon after the nation celebrated Imran Khan’s election to the position of Prime Minister on Friday afternoon, large parts of Sindh plunged into darkness due to a massive power breakdown triggered by the rain. The collapse occurred in the Extra High Tension (EHT) line of National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC), which tripped in Jamshoro around 9pm.

It took the NTDC and Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) until Saturday afternoon to restore power. The people in 13 districts of Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah divisions spent their night in darkness accompanied with hot and humid weather.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department recorded a meagre 4 millimetres of rain in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas which include Jamshoro. The highest rainfall was recorded in Mirpurkhas at 37 mm while some parts of Tharparkar received as high as 20 mm downpour.


Yet, the transmission system of the two companies could not sustain the low precipitation. "The light went off soon after rain began and was restored early in the morning but only for a couple of hours," claimed Saeed Ghani, a resident of Memon Society in Hyderabad.
Ghulam Muhammad, a resident of Tando Adam taluka of Sanghar district, claimed that they remained without power till Saturday afternoon. The company operates 76 grid stations and 488 electricity feeders in its regions.
"The NTDC restored only one of its two circuits [supplying power to HESCO's grid stations from 500 KV Jamshoro grid station] at 2:10am. This restricted us [HESCO] from restoring the power supply completely," the company's spokesman Sadiq Kubar told The Express Tribune.
According to Kubar, it took the company a few more hours to energise the electric feeders. The second circuit was restored by 11:35am on Saturday, he added.
An official of HESCO posted at a grid station, who requested anonymity, claimed that the delay in restoration of the power supply was caused by the officials and staff responsible for the feeders. He said that following the initial rain of the season, faults in the grid and the transformers are a common occurrence globally and it is the same at HESCO.
The spokesman acknowledged that the local faults in the transmission lines and the electric transformers delayed the restoration. “The faults in the transformers' coil, fuse or jumpers or in the discs or conductors of the cables or at the zero cable which emanates from the grids occur,” he explained.
The company could not provide a specific number as to how many grid stations and feeders developed faults. Although the complaints pouring in from all the districts of Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah divisions suggest prolonged outages, the spokesman said only six or seven of the 76 grids developed faults. An official source said that up to 40 grids were closed.
People in Karachi also spent a sleepless night as most areas of the city suffered electricity breakdown following the tripping of the EHT line in Jamshoro. A K-Electric spokesperson said that the Bin Qasim Power Plant tripped following the fault in Jamshoro. Power was, however, restored to most of the areas by Saturday morning.