Staff Reporter
Karachi
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Saturday visited the offices of K-Electric, to take the company to task over continued power outages in numerous areas of Karachi, despite the passage of nearly two days since torrential rains lashed the city.
His visit came as eight more people were found to have lost their lives in various rain-related incidents, taking the overall death toll in the record-breaking monsoon spell to 48, officials said.
Numerous key arteries and underpasses, especially in the city’s downtown, and several residential areas were still inundated. Some neighbourhoods remained without power even as work continued to restore supply lines.
At the KE office, Chief Minister Shah was given a briefing on the power supply situation by KE Chief Executive Officer Moonis Alvi.
“What kind of service is this that power remains absent for 30-35 hours?” Shah was quoted as saying in a statement by his office.
Noting that electricity had yet to be restored in DHA, Clifton and many other areas, the chief minister expressed the fear that citizens could “create a law and order situation” out of frustration. He said people were already protesting against the outages.
Shah, who also visited the KE control room, was informed by its CEO that 1,615 out of the power utility’s 1,900 feeders were functional. Alvi said that KE could not restore power when four feet of water was standing in some areas.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Army’s engineers on Saturday continued de-watering process at the underpasses in Karachi, clearing rainwater from at least one of them, said Inter Services Public Relations.
According to a press release issued by the ISPR, the dewatering process was completed at COD underpass at Shahra-e-Faisal while the process to drain water from KPT underpass was ongoing.
“The dewatering process was also going on in other affected areas,” the army’s media wing was quoted as saying as the armed forces continue to provide ration, cooked food and other basic commodities to the rain-affectees through its mobile teams.
The army recovery vehicle is shifting vehicles trapped in rainwater to safe locations and also removing other obstacles from the major thoroughfares in order to ensure smooth flow of traffic in the city.
