Ramallah: A raging fire sparked by a candle has destroyed a house in Al Lebban village, south of Nablus.

The candle was being used as residents have been without electricity for several days.

Gassan Doghlous, the official of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) who oversees the Israeli colonial activities in northern areas of the West Bank, said that the house of Sulaiman Hassan Daraghmah was totally burned but no one was injured as the family members had evacuated safely.

Doghlous told Gulf News that the fire was reported to the Palestinian Civil Defence which fought it but were unable to save the house.

Huge parts of Nablus Governorate have been under total blackout since last Tuesday when a snowstorm hit the Palestinian territories. Public and private properties in Nablus and its surrounding villages have suffered tremendously since.

In another incident, a civil engineer was declared dead in the village of Al Nassariyah, east of Nablus after being electrocuted when he attempted to fix a water pump.

The victim’s remains were taken to Rafidyah Hospital and were ordered to be handed to his family for burial. The man will be laid to rest later today in his home village.

Sources in Nablus told Gulf News that several other deaths and injuries have been reported in and around the governorate due to the blackout.

At this time there has been no confirmed time for the return of the electricity supply in Nablus.

Yahya Arafat, who heads the Northern Company of Electricity, said in a statement that Nablus lost 60 megawatts of its 88 megawatts capacity when the snowstorm hit the West Bank because of several failures in the main cables coming from the Israeli feeding electric company.

Arafat said that the electric emergency teams have been expanded from three working teams to 36 teams to address the blackout over most of Nablus, but the movement of those teams has been limited by the snow which blocks the roads.

He stressed that the work should be coordinated with the Israeli occupation and seven new electric towers needed to be installed instantly.

Arafat said that it will take a few more days to secure the restoration of the electricity across Nablus.

So far Nablus has not been able to estimate the damages and loss caused by the snow storm.

Qays Awwad, who heads village councils south of Nablus, told Gulf News that villages surrounding Nablus have suffered dramatically during the snowstorm as hundreds of olive trees have been uprooted and chicken farms have been destroyed.