Multan, Pakistan: Massive flooding in Pakistan has threatened electricity generation plants, forcing units to shut down in a country suffering from a crippling energy crisis, officials said Friday.
"Flood water reached to the boundary wall of the 1,200-megawatt Kot Addu Power Company plant late Thursday," the director general of the state-owned Pakistan Electric Power Co., Mohammad Khalid, told AFP.
"Now only three units out of 12 are working and producing only 300 megawatts of electricity," Khalid said. But the water was receding, he said.
Khalid said that in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three grid stations in Dera Ismail Khan, Swat and Shangla were shut down by the floods.
Two private power plants producing 350 megawatts each also closed as floodwater entered the courtyard of one plant, he said.
Sohail Tipu, a senior government official in the central province of Punjab, said the town of Kot Addu was cut off because of flooding and that the government was making "maximum efforts" to rescue people.
Pakistan only produces about 80 per cent of the electricity it needs, leading to massive power outages and sparking summer protests against the government.
