Life reels from power outages

Large parts the capital and the prime port city of Chittagong reeled under hours of power cuts yesterday after four major grids tripped amid a dogging countrywide crisis, making life miserable.

The grid glitch shut Ulan and Dhanmondi substations in Dhaka, leaving the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Bangladesh Secretariat and Karwan Bazar, Maghbazar, Indira Road, Paltan and Segunbagicha without power.

Hathazari grid failure in Chittagong shut a 50-megawatt (mw) plant in Kaptai and a 60mw plant in Shikalbaha, plunging many areas in blackout.

Rampura-Ulan, Haripur-Ulan and Ulan-Maghbazar grids under Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (Desa) broke down at about 1:00pm because of a fault at Maghbazar substation.

Of the grids, Haripur-Ulan was restored in 18 minutes and Rampura-Ulan in 130 minutes, but the fault in Ulan-Maghbazar line could not be corrected until evening. In Chittagong, the grid was mended in the afternoon.

Crisis still dogged Maghbazar as the substation, hobbled by the technical glitch, was failing to meet the demands.

But authorities denied major power disruption in the capital, although water crisis brought life to its knees in Ulan and Dhanmondi areas.

Closure of some power plants has long been disrupting life in rural Bangladesh, affecting irrigation facilities, especially in the northern region, in peak rice farming season.

A 210mw unit of Raozan power plant long remained inoperative, while gas crisis shut down two units of Ghorashal plant with a combined 265mw capacity.

The country's power generation target stood at 3,294mw yesterday against the demand of 3,425mw. Although the estimated demand-supply gap was 131mw, sources said the real difference was higher.

Power authorities said they were trying to minimise power cuts in rural areas soon to enable farmers to water their rice paddies.