SUKKUR, Aug 5 Most parts of Sukkur city plunged into darkness on Wednesday night, following a major fault in the 132kv transmission line near Shikarpur.

It may be mentioned that hours-long loadshedding has been carried out in the city and its adjoining areas for several months, apart from frequent breakdowns and trippings.

At about 730pm on Wednesday evening, half of Sukkur plunged into darkness, which followed the loadshedding of six to eight hours.

When contacted, grid officials said that power supply was cut off by officials of regional control centre in Jamshoro.

But an official off the RCC first denied that the supply to had been discontinued but when this correspondent told him that local grid officials were blaming centre he rudely said “Yes we have cut off the supply to Sukkur” and banged the phone.

The PRO to the chief executive officer Hesco, Hyderabad, Sadiq Kobhar, told this correspondent that power shortfall had shot up to 530 megawatts and, therefore, officials of national power control in Islamabad had ordered to cut off power supply to Sukkur and other cities.

However, power was restored at about 830pm but disrupted again eight minutes later. This, according to the grid officials, was due to development of a fault in the 132kv transmission line near Shikarpur.

The chief executive of Hesco, Mr Habibullah Khilji, was present in Sukkur at that time. Power supply to the city had not been restored till late night.