Dhaka— Power connection in different parts of capital Dhaka has started resuming nine hours after the national grid failed over technical glitch, officials and city residents said.
Residents in Maghbazar cheered in joy when the connection restored lighting up the area at 10 pm as report reached from few other areas that power supply was restored. Many other areas remained still in dark.
“The connection was restored in our area at around 9pm, but the area again plunged into darkness nearly 10 pm,” a resident from Pallabi of Mirpur said.
Residents from Dhaka’s Basabo, Gopibagh, Farmgate, Gulshan and Banani areas reported that the electricity connection restored.
The sate-run Power Grid Company of Bangladesh says that the connection established in many areas and the remaining areas will get power gradually.
Earlier a spokesman of the company said that they would be able to fix the problem by 10 pm across Bangladesh. But many of the districts remained in darkness.
The power stations across the country were able to supply 3100 megawatts of electricity until 10.30 pm against the total demand of 6600 megawatts, Mir Aslam Uddin, the senior information officer of the company, told newsnextbd.com.
The power supply in port city Chittagong was restored at around 7.30pm.
A slight restoration of electricity at 4.15 pm has caused further complicated the effort to restore the power supply, officials say.
The President’s residence cum office Bangabhaban and the prime minister’s office and residence see power supply earlier, plunging the whole country into darkness. The emergency services were in priority list.
The national power grid failed at around 11.30 am due to technical fault in Bahrampur-Bheramara point grid connectivity between India and Bangladesh.
“We have managed to restore electricity to some parts of the country at around 5.00 pm,” Uddin told newsnextbd.com at 5.05 pm.
He said a seven-member probe body that investigating the causes of the countrywide blackout would come up with what actually resulted in such power outages for hours.
The country’s premier hospital, Dhaka Medical, was run with alternative source of power up to 3.00 pm since the outage.
After 3.00 pm, electricity supply was restored for around 15 minutes, on-duty medical officer Feroz Ahmed told newsnextbd.com. At around 5.00 pm, electricity resumed to a limited level. The hospital came under complete supply network at around 9pm.
The doctors at the hospital say they usually conduct at least 35 emergency operations everyday.
“But today we can do can at best 16 operations due to limited supply of power,” said Feroz Ahmed.
Earlier state minister for power, Nasrul Hamid, told reporters that the power supply in Kaptai had been restored, assuring people that the situation would normalize within an hour.
But his promise remains unfulfilled upto 6.00 pm.
Sajjadur Rahman, a technical director, told newsnextbd.com that a technical glitch at a sub-station in Bheramara, Kushtia caused the power failures in the national grid that transmits power across the country.
This fault resulted in the shutting of the six power plants in Ashuganj, Brahmanbaria and three rental power units at around 12.45 pm.
Power Grid Company’s managing director Masum Beruni told journalists that fault at a point caused troubles at other points through which electricity went to different parts of the country.
Technical experts say the fault took place while feeding in the electricity from India through Bahrmapur-Bheramara point. The power grid officials did not vacate the distribution line to absorb the power coming from India.
As the Indian electricity was transmitted into the distribution line without vacating the prevalent power resulted in overload, ultimately collapsing the distribution channel.
This trip caused others fail one after another.
People across the country were ignorant about the massive power failure as they could not watch television channels.
The people came to know about it as some power offices made public announcements in the loudspeakers.
“We come to know about it from the announcements by the loudspeakers by the authorities,” Mahbubar Rahman (65), a resident of Naogaon town, told newsnextbd.com at around 4.00pm.
The offices of the President and the prime minister also watch power failures and the two highest offices are run with alternative power supply. The normal activities in the key installations such as the Shahjalal International Airport and Dhaka Medical College have been being run with alternative source of power.
The officials say Saturday’s power failure is the second worst after the 2007 November disaster Sidr that tore apart the electricity distribution system, plunging the country for consecutive three days.