MULTAN, Aug 30: The bus accident in Rahim Yar Khan could have been averted had the 11kv high transmission wires were at the minimum prescribed altitude or the Wapda’s protection system against short-circuit working properly.

Sources in the Wapda’s grid operation system told Dawn that the 11kv (11,000 volts) transmission lines ought to be at least 30 feet higher than the ground level while at road crossings it was supposed to be even higher.

Furthermore, they added, principally a device called the Over Current Relay (if working ) could sense the fault in the transmission line and send a message to the circuit breaker to cause suspension of the power supply within a second (precisely 250 milliseconds or 0.25 second) in case of a short-circuit.

They said the Wapda’s protection system comprising circuit breakers, relay devices and isolators were usually supported by the direct current (batteries of 120 volts). However, due to the negligence of the staff responsible for their maintenance at the grid stations the protection system often failed to respond in case of emergency.

The sources reminded of an incident occurred last year in Vehari’s 132kv grid station when 13 control panels of the station were destroyed as the protection system had failed to respond. The damage would have been on a larger scale had the protection system of the 220kv grid not responded in the similar fashion.

It may be added here that the grid stations of 500kv and 220kv are operated by the National Dispatch and Transmission Company (NTDC) in the country while the grid stations of 132kv and 11kv are run by the distribution companies such as Mepco, Lesco, Hesco, Qesco, etc.

Efforts to talk to Mepco Chief Executive Agha Nazim Ali could not prove fruitful as when contacted at his cell phone someone told this correspondent that he was in the washroom and five minutes later it was said that he had left his cell phone at home while going to an inspection.

Our Rahim Yar Khan correspondent adds that after the accident, people of the area said they had contacted many times the offices of Mepco XEN concerned about dangling wires but no remedial action was taken.

The naib nazim of the area, Fazal Karim, said he had sent applications to Mepco authorities but they did not take notice.

Wapda operations official Faqir Muhammad Khan claimed that the accident had been caused by the bicycles loaded on the top of the bus and that the altitude of the high-tension wires was standard.