KOHAT: A huge blaze that broke out in the 132KV grid station on the Rawalpindi Road here on Thursday evening plunged the entire Kohat district into darkness, officials said on Friday.

“The blaze was caused by the heating up of the feeders’ room. It will take at last three days for restoring the power supply,” the officials said.

Deputy commissioner Dr Azmatullah Wazir along with additional deputy commissioner (general) Shehryar Qamar also reached the grid. He contacted the Peshawar Electric Supply Company chief executive officer, requesting him to send a technical team from Peshawar to expedite the repair work.

A technical team reached Kohat today (Friday) to evaluate the damage.

The team was led by superintending engineer, Khyber circle, Eng Habibur Rehman. After assessment of losses the team started immediate repair work.

Shehzad, a member of the team, said seven feeders and a power transformer had been completely burnt, and that all the 32 feeders had had been shut as a safety measure during the repair work.

It is worth mentioning that half of the Mianwali district in Punjab is also provided electric supply from the same grid.

The technical team claimed the cause of the massive fire was the short-circuiting of the power transformer and feeders.

Following the blaze at the grid station, tehsil municipal officer Mohammad Shoeb immediately dispatched all the four firefighting engines at his disposal, which arrived at the scene along with Rescue 1122 vehicles that put out the flames by Thursday night.

Meanwhile, Younis Shah, chairman of Wapda Hydro Electric Workers’ Union, said they had been demanding a second grid station in Kohat for last three decades as the old one could not cater to the ever-increasing population.

He added they had been apprehending such an incident because feeders were being added to the grid beyond its capacity, which remained overloaded all the time.

Mr Shah said the union also demanded that air conditioners be installed at the old grid station for the cooling of the feeders in summer, but nobody was paying any heed.

He said the land for the new grid had been purchased but the authorities concerned were not releasing the required funds for the purpose.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2024