Sun bakes Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan on first of Ramazan

Windstorm, thunderstorm after Iftar in some areas provide relief; grid station attacked in Peshawar; power breakdown hits Karachi, 13 other districts of Sindh; NTDC says tripping of transmission lines emanating from Hubco plant triggered blackout

KARACHI/LAHORE: Citizens experienced a sudden increase in loadshedding on the first of Ramazan across the country amid the harsh weather in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.

However, the worst was reserved for Sindh where a power breakdown a few hours before the first Sehri of Ramazan plunged most parts of Karachi and all the 13 districts of Sindh which are powered by the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) into darkness on Sunday.

In the Punjab, extreme weather made the life miserable during the day; however, windstorm and rain/hailstorm in the northeastern parts of the province after sunset provided some relief to the people.

Meanwhile, a woman was killed after a wall collapsed during the severe windstorm in the Kamoke area of Gujranwala. Eight people, including women and children, were hurt in two similar separate incidents at Dhuleywala and Girjakh. Earlier in the day, Sunni Tehrik staged a protest in the city against long hours of power outages. Similarly, protesters performed the ‘funeral’ of electricity and torched bills in Sheikhupura. An angry mob attacked another grid station, this time at Sakhi Chashma in Peshawar. There was up to 18 hours of outages in some areas. Sahiwal, Pakpattan, Gujrat, Sialkot, Nankana Sahib and Jhelum were among the worst-affected districts.

According to Hesco spokesperson Sadiq Kubar, the electric supply was suspended to 76 grid station after the 500kV transmission line of National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) tripped in Jamshoro district. Although the Hesco claimed that restoration of the power supply started in phases by early Sunday morning, the residents of many areas of Hyderabad as well as other districts complained of dealing with over nine hours of outages.

The power supply to Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Matiari, Nawabshah, Sanghar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Badin, Thatta, Sujawal, Tharparkar, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar districts was affected.  The power breakdown was experienced in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Malir, FB Area, Liaquatabad Landhi, Old City, North Karachi, Gulshan-e-Hadeed and other areas of Karachi.  On the other hand, the National Transmission and Despatch Company Ltd (NTDC) spokesperson claimed that a preliminary investigation showed that both 500kV transmission lines emanating from the Hubco power plant did not trip due to any transmission fault as the tripping was caused by transfer trip signal from the power plant.

The NTDC has requested the Hubco authorities to investigate the cause of tripping that resulted in the loss of generation. Resultantly, the southern system was subjected to under frequency and the Jamshoro Power Plant was also tripped. This led to power breakdown in the K-Electric and Hesco areas.

According to the spokesperson, the NTDC engineers managed to energise 220kV KDA 33 - Jamshoro power system and 500kV Karachi - NKI- Hubco power system at 0430 hours in a shortest possible time. Later, Unit No 4 of Hubco power plant was connected with 500kV NKI grid station at 0704 hours. The power system gradually got normalised with the additions of power units of Hubco and Jamshoro at 0805 hours. The situation could be further eased out, if Hubco and local power plants of K-Electric are on full generation.

The spokesman said the Ministry of Water and Power had specially commended the efforts of ground formations of NTDC, NPCC and Hesco on immediate restoration of system which normally took much longer time. Immediate restoration and linking of tripped lines was achieved within shortest span of two hours and the facilities at Jamshoro and Hubco started generation which gradually increased as per the standard technical specifications, he added. The power supply remained uninterrupted during Sehri time in other parts of the country. Around 97 per cent of urban areas were provided uninterrupted power supply during Sehri while 85 per cent of rural areas remained under the zero outages. The power generation recorded stood at 17,400MW and the shortfall remained within manageable limits.

Updating about the rehabilitation work of the damaged NTDC towers, the spokesperson said seven 500kV towers of Dadu -Guddu transmission line had been erected and four quad bundles conductors were being repaired /replaced. According to the Met Office, thunderstorm/ hailstorm lashed Islamabad, Murree, Sargodha, Mianwali and Mirpur (AJK) after Iftar. The heatwave is expected to affect the region during the next three days with some areas continue experiencing the maximum temperature of over 50 degree Celsius.