KARACHI, May 24: The Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Kanupp) and the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) indulged in recrimination following what was believed to be pre-dawn pilferage of power cables, causing the country’s first nuclear power plant to shut down on Tuesday.

As rumour-mongers went into overdrive and alleged that power cables had been stolen from Kanupp, the Managing Director of the Karachi Nuclear Power Complex, M Qamrul Hoda, issued a press note and made it clear that the shutdown was attributable to the tripping of two transmission lines, which connect Kanupp with KESC network, and were owned and maintained by city’s power utility.

He said: “At 0208 hours on Tuesday, one of the KESC transmission lines tripped and could not be normalized even after repeated attempts by the KESC. Five hours later at 0702 hours, the other transmission line also tripped. The loss of both transmission lines isolated Kanupp from the KESC system which could not sustain its operation and was shut down.

“The KESC later informed Kanupp that the cause of the line loss was attempted theft of KESC transmission lines’ conductors. The incident occurred at a distance of nearly 15 km from the Kanupp plant. Obviously, Kanupp has no connection at all with this incident.”

However, a KESC spokesman said it was still unclear what had caused the two transmission lines to trip on Tuesday morning. He said it was too early to say whether the power cables had been stolen. He said the incident would be investigated by KESC engineers.

Mr Hoda said Kanupp had been operating smoothly and safely and supplying nearly 40 megawatts to the KESC since February.

This claim of Kanupp was contested by the KESC spokesman who said he had been informed by the power utility’s load distribution centre that the nuclear power plant had notified in advance that it would remain down on Tuesday and Wednesday.

While a spokesman for Kanupp said it was strange that the KESC should express ignorance about the theft of power cables blamed for the tripping of transmission lines while it was KESC itself who had informed Kanupp about the incident.

He stressed that maintenance of both the lines were the KESC’s responsibility.

Kanupp officials told Dawn that the nuclear power plant had not notified the KESC about a two-day shutdown.

“The nuclear plant has been running for the past 94 days. Traditionally, the staff at Kanupp receives a bonus when the plant runs for 100 days at a stretch. Since the plant had been operating smoothly, there was no reason why it should be shut down a couple of days before the 100-day mark,” they said.

Mr Hoda said Kanupp would resume power supply as soon as the lines were rectified and maintenance jobs completed.