June 23, 2007	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 07, 1428

HYDERABAD, June 22: A large portion of Hyderabad city, Matiari, Mirpurkhas and Tandojam remained without electricity whole night between Thursday and Friday thanks to fragile power supply network of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) that had been hit by windstorm on Thursday.

The areas that are supplied power from Hala Naka, Qasimabad, Site area, NTPS and other grid stations plunged into darkness following windstorm on Thursday evening that struck the city between 5 to 6 pm at a speed of 60 nautical miles.

Almost all the feeders of Qasimabad and Hala Naka grid stations got tripped due to the windstorm.

Hesco employees started normalising the system soon after the power breakdown. The 11,000 KV line of Mirpurkhas, 66 KV line of Matiari and 132 KV line of Tandojam developed massive faults, affecting power supply for whole night.

The Hala Naka grid station's Miani forest feeder which supplies water to a big rural population in Hyderabad (rural) taluka passed a sleepless night and it was restored after well over 24 hours. Likewise, areas of city, Husri, Khattar, airport that are hooked up with NTPS feeder remained without power till 11 am on Thursday.

Saddar sub-division of Qasimabad grid station remained badly disturbed even on Friday after two poles fell on Thursday evening. The Hesco officials shifted load of one feeder, causing an overload over the second feeder causing low voltage.

Areas of Sarfaraz sub-division, which were without power for five hours, also due to disturbances in Qasimabad grid station.

Hesco has not come up with any explanation of the situation as yet.