Power outages continue in Sharjah

Sharjah: Many residents in the industrial areas and the Sharjah Free Zone are upset as they are still facing outages for more than four hours daily. They claim outages occur even after Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (Sewa) came out with an apology.

"When you apologise, then you expect things to come back to normal," said an university lecturer who lives in Industrial Area 3. On Monday the lights went out there for three hours from 6.30 pm to 9.30 pm.

The electricity authority had apologised to its customers after the outages had brought life to a standstill. In Industrial Area 13, it was a complete blackout for three continuous days.

The authority yesterday briefed the Executive Council on the situation and the measures it was taking to restore uninterrupted power. It said the reason for the outages was because of a technical malfunction after the network faced exceptionally heavy loads during the advent of summer. It said it will try its best to ensure that the supply of electricity is not compromised. It called on consumers to use power judiciously.

One resident said, "It's [the outages] making life very difficult." He alleges that when he called the Sewa hotline, he was told to leave the area as no one knows how long this situation will continue there.

When Gulf News called the hotline a couple of times, the line was busy.

In the free zone, the situation was even worse as people living in workers accommodation were shunted around. "If you go to Sewa, it says the problem is with the free zone. If you go to the zone, they say go to Sewa," said one manager of a manufacturing company.

Some residents in Industrial Area 13 are thinking of packing up and leaving after the outages. "Right in front of us is a government building where lights are on even in the night," said one angry resident.