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HYDERABAD, April 16: Heavy downpour and hailstorm lashed the city and the adjoining areas on Sunday evening, breaking down the power supply system and bringing life to a standstill.
The Meteorological office recorded 39 millimetres of rain in the city and 29.2 mm at its office at the airport.
It began raining at around 5pm and continued for over an hour without any break on a day the met office had predicted would see hot and dry weather.
A complete power breakdown followed the rain, with a Hesco spokesman claiming most of feeders had been closed as a precautionary measure. The power could not be restored in most parts of the city up till 8:30pm.
The spokesman said Hesco officials had been forced to turn off power supply from grid stations to avoid any serious accident after four feeders caught fire in poly-II, agriculture complex, L-4 and L-10.
Hesco teams visited different areas to repair damages to electric wires and started restoring power supply after a clearance.
When the power supply system broke down, buyers left bazaars for homes and ankle-deep rainwater compelled shopkeepers to close their business earlier than usual.
The rain was so heavy that many a motorist and motorcyclist had to park at petrol pumps and roadside to wait till it slowed down.
Low-lying areas of the city were completely flooded, with Sabzi Mandi, which lacks a proper sewerage system, experiencing the worst conditions where rainwater mixed with garbage entered the shops leaving shopkeepers to try on their own to drain it out.
SANGHAR: A dust storm played havoc in the city on Sunday evening as it shook off a huge quantity of unripe mangoes from trees, adding to the owners’ losses.
It also disturbed power supply at many places. The high velocity winds broke high-tension transmission wires at Bakhoro road and uprooted a tree at district council building on the main road.
KHAIRPUR: A dust storm followed by rains paralysed life in Upper Sindh, including Khairpur, Shikarpur and Sukkur districts, on Sunday evening.
It blew away sheds of the shops and thrashed about wheat and also damaged standing wheat crop. Power supply remained suspended for as long as the dust storm continued.
Growers said it would badly affect date palm and mango orchards.
DEMAND: The Pakistan chapter of the South Asia Lawyers Forum demanded the president and prime minister earmark a lawyers’ colony in each district of the country.
In a statement issued on Monday, the forum’s chairman, Riazuddin Qureshi said the previous governments had announced residential colonies for the lawyers on many occasions but taken no practical steps.
