SIALKOT, May 12: Dozens of people, including school students, fainted in the Sialkot district as temperature soared to 46 degrees Celsius in some areas on Friday.

Most of the people fell unconscious owing to long hours of power suspension in the sizzling temperature in Sialkot, Daska, Bhopalwala, Sambrial, Uggoki, Pasrur, Badiana, Chawinda and their surrounding areas.

In Sialkot, minor students of private schools — Bisma, Khalid, Aqib, Suleman, Shakeel, Rabia and many others fainted as electricity remained suspended in their institutions for many hours.

Daska town experienced seven hours of continuous power suspension from 8am to 3pm. Three people — Zahid, Allah Rakha, Bashiran Bibi and several children, including Shazia, Farah, Hassan, Nasir, Fiaz and Luqman, fell unconscious. They were admitted to hospitals where the condition of some children was stated to be serious.

Sialkot Markazi Anjuman Tajran president Mehar Ghulam Mujtaba and secretary-general Ehsanul Haq Butt expressed their grave concern over the long duration of power suspension.

Terming it a loadshedding, they said that prolonged outages in the Sialkot district had badly affected business activities.

They said most of markets, factories, financial institutions and industrial units remained closed in the absence of power supply.

They threatened to observe a hunger strike against Gepco officials, if they did not improve the situation.

When contacted, Gepco officials said the excess load on electricity consumption was the result of long hours of power suspension while efforts were being made to look up the situation.

DISMISSED: Sialkot ASP Jamalur Rehman on Friday dismissed from service four constables — Mumtaz Ahmad, Suhail Ahmad, Muhammad Riaz and Muhammad Akram — due to absence from their duties.