The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The country experienced a major power collapse yesterday following a technical fault in the national power grid at Ashuganj Power Plant, disrupting normal life across Bangladesh.

The whole country plunged into darkness at 11:45am as all power generation units closed down due to the national grid failure. The crisis forced patients in hospitals in the capital and elsewhere to suffer miserably, generated crisis of water in the cities and long queue of motor vehicles at different refueling stations for hours, halted industrial production and disrupted traffic signal systems in all cities, official sources said.

Key-point installations like Bangabhaban (presidential palace), Cantonment, Chief Adviser's Office also came under the nagging outage following the national grid failure.

The trouble ensued at 11:40am in the 132 KV supply line of the Ashuganj Power Plant and closed down the installation. The problem immediately hit all the running power plants of the

At about 6:00 pm, the Power Development Board (PDB) and the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) supplied 220MW electricity to different important establishments in the capital city when the generation reached 1,000MWs.

Technicians of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and concerned agencies immediately started restoration work. Energy and Power Adviser Tapan Chowdhury had a series of meetings with concerned high officials and asked for immediate restoration of power generation and supply. He visited DESA office and had meeting with DESA Chairman Brig Gen Nazrul Hasan and PDB Chairman Shawkat Ali.

Power generation could be restored to 600 MW by 3:00pm, when electricity was supplied to the Bangabhaban and some parts of the capital. Then power was supplied to Tongi, Haripur and Meghnaghat Power Plants in phases for regeneration of electricity, Power Secretary Dr M Faozul Kabir Khan said.

He, however, could not identify the reason for the failure of national power grid.

After the power disaster, all the top officials of the Power Development Board (PDB) and the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) gathered at the load-dispatch centre at DESA Headquarters to put their heads together to figure out the magnitude of the problem and what was to be done.

They relentlessly worked to restore the power supply and got the breakthrough at about 2.30 PM through resuming operation at Mymensingh Power Station.

Taking auxiliary electricity from that power unit, they restored generation at some other small power stations in Kaptai, Bheramara and Sirajganj.

Talking to journalists, Power Secretary Dr Fouzul Kabir Khan expressed the hope that they could be able to restore electricity supply in and around the city by 10:00pm.

However, most parts of the capital were still in darkness due to lack of electricity till filing of this report at 10:15pm yesterday.

City dwellers returned to their respective houses early yesterday apprehending mugging on the roads in darkness. Market places, despite the eid shopping season, also closed early.

This is for a second time that the country suffered national grid failure within a month, as a similar disaster occurred following the super-cyclone Sidr that pounded the country's southern region on November 15.