KARACHI, May 14: A major portion of the city plunged into darkness in the small hours of Sunday after a transformer caught fire at the Gizri grid station.

Residents of Clifton, Defence, Gizri, Maulvi Tameezuddin Khan Road, Frere, Landhi and a part of Saddar were deprived of electricity supply at around 2:30am. A resident of Clifton said that the supply was restored after an 11-hour pause, at around 1:30pm.

However, a spokesman for the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation said that a transformer caught fire at 3:30am and fire tenders put out the fire. The transformer got overheated owing to overload and it had caught fire resulting in suspension of power supply to Gizri, Clifton, Defence, Queen's Road, and Elander Road grids.

He said that Clifton, Queen's Road and Elander Road grids were provided power supply through alternative arrangement and these areas were energised at around 6am.

The Gizri and Defence grids were energised through alternative supply from Korangi West and Baloch Colony grids by 11am.

He said that the situation had improved by noon. The power supply situation in other areas of the city remained normal, except in Jacob Lines and Garden where circuits were switched off for half an hour for technical reasons.

The spokesman said that two teams of engineers were constituted immediately under the summer challenge plan. These teams would carry out a survey of all 52 grids and various circuits and identify those needed to be replaced or repaired without delay. The survey would help KESC take pre-emptive measures as the load on the existing age-old system would increase. A rescue team was also set up to provide a back-up support to engineers who would work to rectify faults and accelerate the process of repair so that the span of power shutdown could be minimized, he added.

The residents of Clifton, Defence and other areas spent a sleepless night as power supply could not be restored for hours. A woman consumer from Phase II in Defence said that power supply to her locality had been suspended at around 3am and restored at 11pm.

A resident of Landhi No.4 said that power supply to his locality and the adjoining areas remained suspended for three hours in the morning, again for four hours in the afternoon, and yet again for four hours in the evening.