World | Pakistan
Glitch in power line from Tarbela dam untraced hours after outage
Millions of homes across Pakistan were left without power for several hours yesterday after a glitch in the national electricity transmission system, government officials said.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 September 25, 2006
Islamabad: Millions of homes across Pakistan were left without power for several hours yesterday after a glitch in the national electricity transmission system, government officials said.
The nationwide blackout struck at about 1:30pm (0830GMT), said Shafqat Jalil, a spokesman for the state-run Water and Power Development Authority.
"There is no chance of sabotage because had it been so, it would have been reported to us by now," he said.
Jalil said that by 6:45pm (1345 GMT) power was restored to half of the country, including the capital Islamabad. It would take another seven hours to get the rest of the country back online, Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem Khan said at a news conference.
The power outage left millions of homes without power, but because many homes and businesses keep spare generators, no major disruption was reported in communications and other electricity-powered services, Jalil said.
"Hospitals and other emergency departments are on generators and backups," he added.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the blackout was caused when a main distribution line short-circuited during routine maintenance. He said the power utility has been ordered to carry out an investigation.
Another major power outage hit Pakistan in 2001, according to Jalil, who did not explain its cause.
Among the cities affected were the capital Islamabad and Lahore.
However, most of the nation's commercial centre, Karachi, still had power, witnesses said.
The electricity was partially restored to Islamabad and some northwestern areas after about two and half hours but Jalil said he could not give time for full restoration of power to the country of 160 million people.
Pakistan produces 20,000 megawatt of electricity.
In Karachi, almost 30 per cent of the areas were without power supply after Wapda stopped 600 megawatts of electricity supply to the city. Many major localities of Karachi including the posh Clifton and Defence Housing Authority neighbourhoods, were without power for more than two hours after Wapda suspended power supply to Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), officials said.
Karachi, which is already hit by prolonged power outages, is likely to deteriorate with the suspension of supply from Wapda, a KESC official said requesting anonymity.
"We have no choice but to resort to massive load-shedding."
Many other cities and towns in the interior of Sindh province have also been hit by electricity failure along with major cities of Punjab including Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Parts of Pakistani zone of Kashmir were also without power, officials said.
Wapda had failed to trace the fault in its electricity transmission system from Tarbela dam.
Officials said that it was one of the worst electricity breakdowns of the country.
Punjab had to face the worst electricity failure yesterday as most parts of the province including Lahore were without electricity for almost four hours between 3pm and 7pm.
According to Wapda sources, a major technical fault in 500kW transmission line from Tarbela dam led to the nationwide blackout.
The cities affected by the power failure included Lahore, Jhelum, Mianwali, Chakwal, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rahim Yar Khan, and Sahiwaal.
With inputs from Mujahid Ali and Amir Mir
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