Several areas of city faced power outage on Saturday afternoon after a high-tension transmission line of 220 kV tripped, affecting the supply of electricity to the associated grids, according to K-Electric.
“Restoration efforts have already begun and are expected to be completed within one hour. Availability of generation supply is enabling restoration to progress swiftly,” it tweeted.Initially, the company had said it had received reports of power breakdown in various areas of the metropolis and was “urgently looking” into them.
In a second update, the power utility said its 220 kV high-tension circuit was affected by tripping in NTDC’s NKI-Baldia 1&2 circuit supplying to Karachi.”KE transmission system is intact and restoration is progressing swiftly,” it said, adding that supply to all affected grids had been restored and downstream energising was underway.
It later tweeted that power supply had been restored to PECHS, Defence, Nipa, Civil Lines, North Nazimabad Block S, and other areas.Meanwhile, K-Electric claimed to start phase-wise restoration of power supply to different areas of the city.
According to K-Electric spokesperson power supply to parts of Karachi was interrupted due to a tripping of KEs 220 kV high tension circuit that was affected by tripping in NTDCs NKI-Baldia 1 and 2 circuits supplying electricity to Karachi.
He claimed that technical fault has been removed as KE transmission system was intact and restoration was progressing swiftly.
Power to all strategic sites has been restored in priority, all grid stations were energized and power supply to 50 percent feeders has been restored till 5.00 pm, he said in a tweeter message.
He further informed that KE technical teams were out in the field and were busy in removing faults at local levels while availability of generation supply was enabling restoration to progress swiftly.
In separate tweets K-E informed that power supply to PECHS, Defence, NIPA, Civil Lines, North Nazimabad, Gulistan e Johar, Gulshan e Iqbal, Federal B area, North Nazimabad, Bahadurabad and I.
I Chundrigar road and other areas have been restored while work was in progress in the affected areas of Korangi, Landhi, Lyari, Saddar and North Karachi.
It further informed that investigation at Bin Qasim Power Station has been completed and no technical faults had been found at any generation units so supply from Bin Qasim Power Complex was being added to the network.
Earlier, the federal Ministry of Energy said that the supply of electricity to Karachi was affected because of tripping in Northern-Karachi Interconnections (NKI) transmission lines Baldia 1 and 2.”The system in the rest of the country is completely normal.
NTDC (National Transmission and Despatch Company) and KE officials are busy restoring electricity supply. The causes of tripping are also being investigated,” it added.
Earlier, several residents, including politicians and journalists, shared messages on Twitter reporting outages in their areas.
MQM-P Senator Faisal Subzwari said “half of Karachi” was facing power breakdown and called on the federal government to step up and offer relief. “There must be reasons but people suffering in this weather consider them excuses. Fed Govt must act to provide relief,” he tweeted.
Some people questioned whether others were also facing the problem.The last massive power breakdown took place less than five months ago, plunging the entire country into darkness.
The blackout was reported a little before midnight of January 10 by citizens on social media from across the country, including major urban centres such as Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Multan, as well as smaller towns and cities.Power was restored to most parts of the country by the evening.
