Karachi: The electricity crisis deepened further in Karachi on Monday as power outages which began on Saturday continued, compounding the miseries of the people, the majority of whom were fasting for Ramadan.

The prolonged breakdown of power was hardly fixed on Sunday when tripping began again, reversing all the restoration work for another 12 to 15 hours in many parts of the city.

A K-Electric spokesman said the transmission line from Bin Qasim tripped and 95 feeders on the system broke down. The breakdown of the transmission line also crippled two K-Electric generating units.

People came out of their houses to protest against the power outages as they remained deprived of the electricity during their Eid shopping and Sehri.

The power failures also led to severe water crisis as half of the water could not be supplied to the city because the pumping station were rendered non-functional.

A spokesman of the water utility said that once the electricity was restored, it would take another four days to normalise the water supply in the city.

In the provincial Sindh assembly, the members of the opposition parties also seen complaining of the electricity crisis.

Agha Sirj Durrani, Speaker of the provincial assembly told journalists that, in his own house, the electricity had been cut off for 15 hours.

Syed Murad Ali Shah, the senior and finance minister of the province called up the K-Electric chief to express his anguish and advised the company to restore the electricity by 4pm.

He also told the commissioner of the city to coordinate with the electric company’s progress on the restoration of the electricity.

Industrialists also expressed their deep concern over the repeated breakdowns, which made it difficult for them to continue with the manufacturing process.

A spokesman of the SITE Association said that they were compelled to plan shifting their industries to somewhere else as it had become unfeasible to continue their businesses here.

This was the fourth breakdown to cripple the commerce, industry and the daily lives of people in the city over the past six days.

A former spokesman of the K-Electric said that the company did not keep pace with the growing demand of the electricity in the city and thus the present chaotic situation emerged.