QUETTA, June 6: Gas supply to vast areas in the country was suspended late on Tuesday evening when the main compressor plant at Sui was closed after the main pipeline feeding the plant was blown up.

“The plant has been closed temporarily as a precautionary measure,” official sources in Sui said.

“The plant will resume operation as soon as the required gas pressure is restored,” sources in the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) said. The sources said that the repair of the affected pipeline had started.

The PPL sources said that the region to which the supply had been affected stretched from Balochistan to Sindh to Punjab to NWFP.

“Gas supply has been stopped to many industrial units, including fertiliser plants, in Punjab, Sindh and other areas of the country,” the sources said.

According to reports, armed men planted a powerful explosive device beneath the pipeline of 20 inches diameter taking gas to the Sui plant from the gas field.

The explosion destroyed a large portion of the pipeline on the outskirts of the Sui township, a senior police officer said.

The sources said that the destruction of the pipeline caused a significant drop in the gas pressure needed to run the plant.

The PPL engineers immediately cut off the affected portion of the pipeline from the rest of the line.

Security forces reached the incident site soon after the blast that rocked the small Sui town.

The engineers launched the repair work on the damaged pipeline under heavy security on Tuesday night.

“We are trying our best to restore the pressure to restart the plant,” the sources quoted officials as saying. The repair would take at least 20 hours, they said.

KILLED: Meanwhile, one person was killed in a bomb explosion in Panjgur area of Makran on Tuesday. He was identified as Younus Baloch.