KARACHI, Nov 10: Power supply in many areas failed to withstand the first winter rain that the city received on Sunday afternoon.
The rain was, however, so light that the Pakistan Meteorological Department equipment did not even record it.
Calling from Federal B. Area, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i- Jauhar, Adamjee Nagar and Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society, residents told Dawn that their localities had experienced power breakdowns on Sunday.
Gulbaz Khan, a resident of Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 17, said he had known that his localized complaint centre would put the power breakdown to the rain. “When I said that my house did not have electricity, pat came the reply that it must have a fault caused by the rain. I then told the telephone attendant that the fault had occurred the previous night. Not to be outdone, he said that it would be difficult to remove the fault while it was raining. I had to remind him that it had not been raining the previous night when I had lodged the complaint for the first time with my localized complaint centre. He then asked for my complaint number. When I told him the number, he said that he did not have any such entry in his complaint register.”
Calling Dawn at around 8pm on Sunday, Askari Hussain, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, said his locality had been without electricity since noon. On Saturday he had informed Dawn that his locality had received electricity after a lapse of four and-a-half-hours.
A resident of Federal B. Area, Block 18, said he had had to endure a power cut from 3pm to 5.30pm. Another resident of the area said his locality had been without power the previous day for several hours.
Calling from Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 16, a resident said that his locality had suffered very bad power breakdowns over the past few days. “Power failures continue almost all night and there is little respite from power cuts in daytime.” He added that only his apartment block had been so badly affected by power breakdowns.
The city received light shower on Sunday which further brought down temperature to 22 degrees centigrade, adds APP.
The Met department forecast light rain at one or two places in the city with partly cloudy day on Monday. Temperature will remain in the range of 20 to 22 degrees. The first brief spell of the rain was recorded early Sunday while the second session in the afternoon brought a pleasant change in the weather.
The maximum temperature was recorded at 30.5 degrees with humidity in the air at 55 per cent.